Pre-Christian cultural heritage Section 2

Tyr myth, Dragon Illuyanka, Fenriswolf, Dragon-head, Kurdistan Hittite culture, AEDICULA, moon priestess, ritual collar, Halstatt, society order, oak coffin, snake, worm, Ugarit, Scorpio, Oxen, Canaan, Astarte, Sun Horse, Sun Stag, golden bract, Heruli, Erils, Pegasus, golden horns

To tie the time

In Enuma Elish we get the feeling of that they created the Animal Round as virtual lead.

In this description they are already like demons since the scribe do not understand that they are originally asterism/ idols from the Animal Round. But they also describe evil demons that could be rationalised to "unknown objects/ conditions" opposite to our planned actions, while the abstract objects got names like the stars and asterisms. Then it is maybe easier to see that they are not real and have existence only in the determined use. Perhaps they knew that mankind has difficulties in separating idea/ idol and reality.

The Hettitian myth and the Nordic Tyr myth are probably from second millennium. Originally they used just a dog animal as symbol and they have normally one at each half-year. In Egypt the one at Ramadan is Anubis and it could be Sumerian Kiel, the fox that taught mankind to store things. In Nordic symbolism we have the dog and the opposite Ketu is symbolised by a dog-head. In Indus it is Rahu that maybe was used in many places. It is still going strong in India where the Brahmins means it got fleas when the astronauts was on the moon. A true leap in the imagination that animates the astronomy as a dog that both ties the moon and is star a picture. Anyway the dogs were fix stars of the ascending and falling node of the moon

In the Levant and in Egypt the farmers have the fight against heat before and around harvesting time. In North we get usually the thunder and lightening and it all in the myth about Raganrauk when the Mights decides how much it should be for the farmer. Is it enough for the winter and the new seed. Occasionally it is also Ramadan when the old year ends. In Scandinavia they counted harvests and not years and in most cultures it was the eve of New Year or half-year.

The most dramatic Nordic myth is implied with Fenriswolf the previous Rahu whose function we must know in order to understand. Otherwise it becomes only a curious fragment about that one tied the wolf with things that do not exist in the mind world. The bond Gleipne was made of six things: the cat's noises, the woman's beards, the mountain's roots, the bear's tendons, fish's breath and the bird's spit. Tyr was the hero that put his hand in gap while they tied the beast. In plain language it is a paraphrase that one ties the wolf with words. That is natural since it is the abstract binding of time. They draw it as a dog/ wolf animal all the time and also the last period at the rune stones. Some exceptions occur on the golden bract but that could be caused by foreign goldsmith. … should be said that since Tyr learnt what pain is and has no sword arm he was fit as judge so she is protector of court i.e. Anglo Scandinavian thing.

In ritual symbolism we see all cultures started the season with ritual that predicted the growing half-year. Among the Hittites they had the Dragon-fight and ritual marriage and it was much the same in other cultures in Middle East. Could seem odd to us but most of the cultures celebrated New Year at Ramadan or in the autumn that was before the rain period/ inundation. That depends on that they saw the rain as giver of fertility and then the new growth started with rain. They tied the time twice a year.

Violent animation does not fit Scandinavian mentality. The mind can/ or does not want to imagine virtual beings. We are straightforward and want to se realistic beings. The Sumerians show the same attitude with goat-fish, lion-eagle and other merged beings that made sense in the context. The Hittitian Dragon looks very organic as taken out of Jurasic Park. That could also indicate that the being was very established.

The Fighter Teshub is the asterism Hercules as the "Man" since very early times. Above his head is the Dragon-head that together with the opposite Tail were used for ascending and falling node of the moon. Some text tells that Illuyanka is a snake and the Dragon around the North Pole looks like a simplified snake. Imagination has to create the beast. However I suppose it is not important as long as the beast is not around -;). Teshub was a storm god that was favourite in many tribes all over the world and I think he is brother of Zeus

In my young days they told us that Jericho is the cradle around 8500 BC. Then came Catal Hüyük in Anatolia and it is harder to make politics of who was first the Palestinians or Anatolians. How can they know the age since only a fraction is excavated? Even archaeology has its silly off topic questions. But now we have entire Kurdistan with sites like Gobekli Tepe and Nevalli Core dated 8 - 10^th millennium BC. We get much longer time perspective and what is important with city culture?

Seven to nine metres long pillars with reliefs tell about advanced technology in the temples of Kurdistan. The reliefs on the pillars include foxes, lions, cattle, wild boars, lizards, herons, ducks, scorpions, ants and snakes. I have not seen the context but at least the Snake seems to have been in ritual use. The Lizard is seen in many rock-carvings in southern cultures. I make a mark at the Scorpion since we above 45 degrees latitude are not used to them and I wonder if it occurred at the level of Nevalli Core. It was the main ritual symbol in 4^th millennium. Even in Scandinavia we have the scorpion on rocks as well the asterism with dots cupmarks and others seems to be a real scorpion knocked to the rock. It symbolises harvest time.

In Kurdistan they have found signs of metallurgy 6750 BC several hundred years earlier than in Catal Hüyük. They have found that einkorn wheat was domesticated in Karacadag Mountains maybe 9000 BC. Agriculture was the base for feeding many people in a place and that creates centres with diversified labour.

Since my young days I have read that the Hittitian culture came from nowhere 1800 BC. I do not believe in that assumption. There has been culture in the area at least since mentioned early "cities". Around 2300 BC Akkadians set the ball in running by uniting small city cultures in Mesopotamia and then extending and intensifying the trade in all directions. That is why we see new cultures like Minoans and Hittitians some hundred years later inspired by the activity in east that also meant demand for different products. The temples were buyers of precious stones and such things

Another old assumption is the Celts came from nowhere around 1200 BC. There have been stone cultures even in Middle Europe since better-known megaliths in West and North. The Nordic Bronze Age started with import of bronze products from England and Italian type from Bohemia and Hungary as far as we know not long after 2000 BC. We see heavy influence from Hallstatt culture in Scandinavia in last millennium.

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We need this comparison in order to see European and Nordic proportions see next part about lunula, gorget and neckring.. We see Sumer - Babylonian fashion in the dress of the overlord and he stands on typical Sumerian Original Hills probably after they conquered Babylon ca 1600 BC. We see the peaked shoes and long "shirt" was fashion in Middle East. The priest-king in the AEDICULA has Sumerian sheep skin skirt … In Lapland they use peaked shoes and I suppose it is local invention. It is handy when the peak holds the ski on foot. Under right arm it seems to be a dagger with crescent handle. In left hand he has a shape we find in a few special scimitar found in Denmark and Sweden.

The AEDICULA holds a concentration icons showing the noble World Order we can call it Ionian and the Aegean world adapted it too. We can compare it with the Parthenon portal with the deity frieze above the pillars. The noble class reserves the space under the gods. Here the upper space with the symbols Sun Eagle, Star of Venus and the rosette symbol of new moon Inanna

In the noble space we have the overlord in Phrygian cap. In some seals he is replaced by a dashed oval or by a double axe alternatively both. He stand on a footstool symbolised by a leg but sometimes picture with a stool. It is perhaps the serving class while the feet are ordinary people. Near him stands the "runners" that perhaps is his guards and connections with the satelles/ pillars symbolising fellow feudal leaders that elected him as overlord. The symbol on top of the pillar read RA and means limit/ border. The seal of Mursilis II has four pillars and could then also mean "the Four Corners of the world" and it illustrates the area the priest king is serving. They usually address themselves as "son of the sun" … that is much like me born of soil and water -;). He was a priestking with most important duty to lead the ritual and be present at the seasonal festivals.

In the AEDICULA we could see the embryo to the four classes of freemen we know from the Aegean world and later the Anglo Scandinavian world. The feudal order with four classes was similar even in early Germany and the Scandinavian hird or English witan. It could be heritage from Anatolia but it could also be that there is only one possibility in organising the upper class.

Moon priestess in lead

This pictures the rural society in sparsely populated Europe north of the Alps. It should be compared to the Hittitian AEDICULA to get the proportion of culture in early Bronze Age that generally began around 2000 BC but in Scandinavia maybe a couple of hundred years later. Val Camonica's picture shows us in its simplicity the agriculture's requirements on organisation. In the centre we see the fenced field with Moon Dog and the Sun above. The axes show that one must be ready to defend the arable land against four legged thieves as well as two footed we see in other rock-carvings too. The type of plough is imported from Egypt and so are the daggers that I call the Isis daggers and they symbolise going-beneath. 

The lines in the U-shape could be seen as furrows of the arable land and they are in end connected with a spiral with two coils at the carvings … it reminds of the bronze bra of later Bronze Age also found in Greece but there are many finds in Scandinavia. We could associate to Egyptian female ritual collar as well as to the Sumerian collar of Inanna and why not the Nordic Brisingamen of Freja. There are also the finds of ritual collars of type gorget made of gold very similar to the field above. The other type is lunula = now the moon flows. It is advanced symbolism with the aim of getting women to follow the leading lady in agriculture. Surely all in the parade dreamt about being the one that was wearing the collar.

My first real treasure hunt was to a magpie nest in the hawthorn on our land. No silly thorn should prevent me. They told me that the magpie steals gold and I thought better check if there was something in the nest. Nothing to write home about, but I remember a teaspoon the silvery paper from some cigarette box. At that age I did not collect silvery paper any more … it was when I was young. Many kinds of birds make adornments to catch a 'bird'. In this case someone has told that the magpie try to frighten off egg robbers.

Mankind has learnt much from the animals and other things have come through the ages. We use glittering things for adornment and eye-catching as well as we want to frighten away by imposing. We get totally wrong impression from bronze and copper artefacts. They should shine as gold when they were new but they have been greening. It was part of the supposed effect to impose and that was what they paid for or worked for. Females or male upper class used very big parts of our artefacts in ritual and the yearman/ lady was the leader - not the fighter.

Most of the ritual weapons are not useful as weapon and especially stone-axes bigger than normal. It is not handy and tends to fly out of your hand if you use it. Why use force when you can show up/ or off? I think many archaeologists should skip martial thinking and look at imposing and frightening as the means to defend themselves. Why fight if you can lure people to go behind you? It is the old thumb rule, "If you can´t beat them, join them"

The Egyptian evidence about the suite or parade as initial lead is dateable to the painted Gerzeeh vases middle 4^th millennium, but that could have been initiated by Sumer/ Elam in Egypt. The Sumerian literary sources are much younger. It is the saying, bread and show for the people. Still they express in hyperintelligent songs how they indoctrinated the people into parades and jobs. They made it canonical demands to follow the lead and the people understood that it was for their own good.

With Iron Age the pollen curves show continuous agriculture in many places. Then rose the need for a village counsel and it seems these rings were use for common activities in the heydays. They are found in many place names in Scandinavia and also in East Anglia. It was just another type besides stoke, weoh, stone, grove and more. Here on Dal we have often pairs and the second could be the lodaring that was used for offer/ fire use at Gotland.

Without doubt is the Moon Goddess our oldest and she symbolises rain, water circulation and fertility. When a plant rise the inner circulation is water rising from the soil and they tell it somehow follow the moon cycle. She it the naked with a moon horn in the Lascaux cave and many more animations. As soon as we humanise her she looks like a person and we easily forget the core that is circulating water and what it causes. But humankind needs such concentrated abstractions to grasp the world/ biosphere. For the naming processes we use known things from nature and the human world

Metal Age meant culture dissemination over the whole northern Europe. The "travelling" items carried myths and instructions people took up after own decision. In Scandinavia it meant also equalisation even when differently ethnic groups made their own variant but the visible gadgets were similar. This process went on for more than 1000 years. Certain adornments such as the neck ring and the woman collar kept well to the Golden Age approximately 500 AD. Thereby not said that all settlements followed the same standard and one can to assume that often certain families laid down more work/resources than other did. But if one has a big hoard it is impossible to decide if it belonged to a community or to some noble family. 

The big turf mounds with oak coffin are the most spectacular and have got almost all attention. Thanks to the technique at funeral the material has been preserved and they have found dresses especially from the mound period 1300 - 1100 BC. Unfortunately the mounds and the swords have fired imagination of martial archaeologists and they see hierarchy and other things in middle Bronze Age. I am not so sure about that. Archaeology in the Aegean sphere believes more in ritual societies with priest-king or queen in lead like in the Hittitian heydays.

As a whole in early archaeology there is too much speculation about wandering cultures and that they changed deities as we change our shirts. The culture was continuously rural and only minor changes in the food industry. The bronze made it possible for some families to do a lot of job to get the ritual adornments and take the lead in their surroundings. There was not need for using force since they just "bought" people with the parade and other things. It become underlying duty to follow the Lady

One sees a gradual change from female to male idols: There are not many female idols at our rock but many of the cupmarks symbolise our Earth Mothers. Urbanisation altered the content of the myths and rules to be about human relation: Later the Romans were specialised in creating virtues and qualities to tame the citizens how the obeying citizen should be. From the bible, we know the prophets' fight wit especially women to create the virtual "invisible" patriarchy of mankind. The women wanted to save Ashera that stood for fertility and living life and in kind customs as the down-to-earth people were used to.

In last millennium we can see heavy cultural flow from the Mediterranean spiral style and including the Handman from Cartage. For a period Halstatt 800 - 400 is reflected on our rocks and I think there is much to discover yet. We know that from the start Scandinavia imported bronzes from England, Hungary and Bohemia with the salt quarries around Halstatt.

The societies in Europe were homogenous rural settlements and they all stood on a common ground. Some new plants millet, rye, oat and perhaps other plants were introduced in the last part of Bronze Age and we got the animal driven plough before Iron Age. There are not many clear rock-carvings about agriculture in fact. The pollen curves show that cereals were sown continuously from around 500 BC onwards. Before that was a period 1100 - 1300 BC with much pollen. People could live a good life on what I call nature use. Still the rituals were needed to bind the time and have some fun of course ... I remember from my childhood that we always were looking forward for next feast except dull Easter and the very long boring Friday.

The picture shows that the old Moon goddess lived in high spirit during the Golden Age and was so important that the leader had her symbol at the golden neckring. Actually, she lives still since also our church ties the year ritual to the vernal equinox by the 6000 years old tradition. However I do not think too many know about it. Even the myth at Easter and Whitsun reflect the old Inanna/ Ishtar and Dumuzi going-beneath and rising. Inanna, the new moon did the first time in Uruk Sumer.

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NOTE

On surfing I stumbled into European Commission RTDinfo Nr. 19 - June-July '98 about "Standards, Measurements and Testing" Telling they are co-ordinating with IFAO Institut Français d'Archéologie Orientale du Caire on topic: IMMACO (Improvement of Means of Measurement on Archaeological Copper-Alloys for Characterization and Conservation)

They analyse copper-based metal objects from Bronze Age, Iron Age and Roman times - and four countries France, Germany, Greece, Italy are implied in the project. Knowing about the heavy evidence from especially Bronze Age Scandinavia I just wonder why on earth they are so euro-centric to middle Europe? Could they be objective? Once I hoped that EU would be the road to wider co-operation even in analysing copper alloys as an example. If they are studying only verdigris it is hard to see for what use?

Snake or Worm

Dumuzi says:

Inanna says:

Finally a song, with priests and priestesses playing the old bull game.

One can of course compare with the Christian, "Adam, Eva and the Snake under the tree" or why not with "Yggdrasil and Nidhogg at the root" in the Edda. The Christian attitude is ambivalent regarding the Sumerian heritage. Partly it is about competing religion to condemn all, partly wants to use everything useful in Sumerian culture and use it as "Christian invention". In that way cultural imperialism is created. To that, temple based prophets and the writers misinterpret the environmental World Order. As above is the Sumerian version a rationalized abstraction of fertility and eroticism.

The Sumerian science had not come so long that they entirely understood the plant propagation. They use the animal/ human as model and it worked in the season. This contributed to that late interpreters has had difficulties to translate Sumerian and Egyptian concepts such as "sister and brother" which in the myth make love with each other. They forget it is fiction and animation. It is of course a golden opportunity to depict these as promiscuous and immoral.

Seeing Inanna as a young girl full of enterprising spirit is easy. She was of course just an image or idol to follow. The myths tell a lot of the writers and people of Sumer and about their problems. They followed her and she got a lot of cousins as time passed. She is Artemis as well as the Girl with the braid ... or why not a modern Pippi Longstocking but with two braids ... never mind, the Naked in Levant had also two thick braids and is pictured en face. We meet now and then details of her myth in carvings and different artefacts too. Mostly in silhouette since it was easier to draw that way

One forgets easily that Inanna is an animated abstraction and virtual being of the new moon, the rain and fertility. In peoples' minds, she becomes a person to take after in the Sumerian songs and her town was Uruk. She is the fertile water and her consort Dumuzi become her stand in maybe as fertiliser but also as the rooted plant in one song in which he has legs like worms … the same image we see later for instance as Yahveh … I think they draw snake-legs to animate living roots.

There are hundreds of uses of the mythic words snake and worm and it varies with the semantics. Now I discover that I ought to be more careful with the use. Here I just line out the origin of some of them. Unfortunately we have got the stereotype that nearly every wavy line with head is a snake and that it is symbol for evil. If we want to be accurate we should tie it to the context in every case. Then we see that it is often a worm and that was maybe the original thought of Watersnake/ Hydra as the Worm as womb of Underworld and soil. The Greek has the female womb as Pyton. It is a good thing but often pictured as evil. In many cases it is just an abstraction and has only the meaning the attribute gives. In many myths they place a worm as the outline of the known world

In eastern monsoon countries they picture it as the Rain Dragon or Rain Worm. If you have experienced the monsoon with continuous heavy rain for weeks you surely see it as endless evil and maybe as a dragon. In early times the season and New Year began with rain and was good thing as it gives fertility. A weaker type occurs still at carnivals and parades in East Asia. The Chinese constructors leave space between the skyscrapers in order to let the Rain Dragon easily fly between. The idea and sound sense is that the clouds' moisture will fly past without getting into the compact towers.

We can see the phase shift between the fertility symbol Snake and harvest symbol Scorpio made evil in Ugarit at the Syrian coast around 2000 BC. The priesthood was alienated from the people and used the concepts from old texts they did not understand really. The original texts came from the Akkad and Mesopotamia at the time. Israelites took after a lot of what they typed in Ugarit and it is the early source to the Bible. Unfortunately they also copied hatred against fertility we find in the bible. Here an incantation against some unknown evil that threatened Urtenu mentioned in last line.

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Let us stay in the Levant since the Bible is the only literate source of the attitudes from the Bronze Age. Until our days' science it was the canonical Christian monopoly for understanding sources to our cultural heritage from the Middle East. There is no need of using stereotype sayings that, "We live in the Roman heritage" as long was we can find the real sources several thousand years earlier in bigger and more advanced cultures than Roman copycats.

Ugarit and the other cities in Lebanon were Canaan and they were the role model for the latecomers the Israelites. "The Israelites borrowed art, architecture, and music from their Canaanite neighbours. But they refused to extend their art to images of Yahweh (cf. Ex 20:4-5). God (= Moses) commanded the people to make no image of himself; and did not forbid every kind of artistic expression. In fact, when Solomon constructed the temple he had it engraved with a great number of artistic forms. That there was a bronze serpent in the temple as well is well known."

The Hebrew prophets and the authorities condemned the old deities for long since especially the women loved the Old Lady of Fertility the Naked Mother Astarte ready for a new season of growth. The Israelites did not leave as many artistic pieces behind as did their Canaanite neighbours. And what they did leave behind show traces of being heavily influenced by these Canaanites. But that means a merge of what Canaan adapted from Mesopotamia, Egypt and The Mediterranean, of course.

Around 1200 BC Ugarit was destroyed by the Sea People (Philistines, Achaeans, South-West Anatolians and more) We do not know the political conditions of the time. Anyway the Phoenicians we are talking about are the remaining cities in Lebanon and they just continued and prospered. Nearest harbour city to Ugarit was Byblos and others legendary cities were Sidon, Tyre and Arwad to mention the most important. Their wealth lasted until Roman time 64 BC and after that the name Phoenician was not used. The cities of today's Lebanon are heirs.

Contemporary with Ugarit is this bangle from middle second millennium. The finds from early Bronze Age are often fragmentary but on bangles as well as neckrings we can notice the groves around the end. That maybe should be seen as worm's head and that associates to fertility and the role of the priestess. The peaceful soil-maker worm is not spectacular but it is a helper for every grower. It is fertiliser when it draw leafs underground and grind them to nothing. At the same time its paths underground make pipes for the rain to spread fast in the soil. There is nothing evil in that so the snake got the role of being evil, however there are many peaceful snakes too. The Romans used the snake for symbolising guard of the grain store. In old days farmers hide snake in the doorpost at the larder maybe for the same purpose.

Both bangles and neckrings are often twisted and ends in something like a worm-head. They are often found in pair and naturally in female graves or oak-coffin. By making the thread double they made early spiral bangles and making the spiral that also could associate to worm/ snake and the Goddess with Snakes from Crete, why not? The rest of the hoard seems to contain neckrings from different periods. After ca 1000 BC the oval ending was narrow and ended in bent tip. Later it became broader and spirals were added and on some of them are punched figures.

The Apophis / Snake/ Worm/ Hydra is womb of earth into which the seed is sown at the Hand/ Cancer asterism. It is also done in correlation with the moon Toth at left being the scribe during the season. The enthroning Osiris of Underworld is the sown seed or next harvest. The suite behind Osiris is Isis with the step to Underworld on head; next is the watering maid Nephtys and lastly probably fertiliser, since the Sumerian symbolism have the water-boy and the fertiliser. Under are two dog animals from the half years of Animal round. In the Underworld the Ureus/ cobras are rising symbolising rising power of plants

My brain helps me to wake up in the morning in order to prevent when I lie wrongly and get too little oxygen. One of its tricks is that it produces hallucinations. Sometimes I "hear" a knock on the door then is I almost up as the sprout. A while it held on with a considerable dog-bark in the ear… irritating actually. Once, I sank probably into the dream world. I was walking in town when a sudden big long-haired green dragon jumped out from the bushes… wide awake of course and I speculated why is it green, have never seen a green before? With this said that mans mind has the capacity to produce imaginations when needed. The brains search always after someone explanation and compare with known things. I do not ask anyone if they ever has seen a green dragon, neither do I tell that I experience such things … the clue is that my brains works efficiently.

Next pictures are more than thousand years younger than Sumerian times. During the last millennium we see snakes/ worms in many place and in some forms it continues over the Golden Age and to the rune stones in 11^th century. In the Catholic Church we find the Dragon in medieval times.

Christianity naturally continued the culture with a few small new patterns. It was a process over many hundred years. I do not think Scandinavians learnt much since everything was in Latin during Catholic Age … it must have sounded strange like magic incantation. Orientius, Bishop of Augusta Ausciorum (Auch) was a Christian Latin poet of the early fifth century. He wrote an elegiac poem (Commonitorium) in 1036 verses. There is a verse with Janua Virgo, Virtus, Sapientia, Verbum I translate freely to Beginning, Maiden, Man, Insight, Preaching.. He also wrote Alma chorus domini and in verse 7 he lists Serpens, Aries, Leo, Vermis that are the asterisms. Serpens symbolises the harvest worm that Opiuchos carries, Aries and Leo are known, while Wermis is the Worm and it is the correct image for the fertile soil and normally called Hydra/ Water-snake. We get proof of the agricultural origin of some of the asterisms even in Christian symbolism. For long in medieval times some monks made horoscopes for the nobility and continued the tradition of astrology born in last millennium probably.

The snake occurs besides the crescent in the symbolism. Then there is the big group 32 % of the golden bracts that I call snake/ worm pit since we only see worms and in a few cases the hand of Tyr in the gap of Fenriswolf 

The middle is filled with fragments from the sagas of Heroic Age. Sigurd with the finger in mouth when he learns to understand birds' tale ... the metaphor for getting wiser. One recognizes Yggdrasil while the heavenly Horse is nearly unknown for Edda-interpreters.

In this connection the '3-plus a stump' snakes as symbols for the year in ritual astronomy. The upper half-year is divided in two with a joint plate where we can read the symbol for "the moon's rising node". The node we find at medieval calendar sticks in August - September. We saw the symbolism of synchronising at Evenstorp when 11 days is added to 12 moons to get the sun year. The Vi/ Weoh was in use until 18^th century in a few places in Denmark. It was used for vernal equinox but surely also for Ramadan. It was "a secret" for farmer's that carried on very old traditions.

Sun Horse and Sun Stag

The Sun Horse/ Pegasus flies on the rocks in India and occurs on many coins in Greece. Maybe the Phoenicians were the first to use a Horse from the sky since they used Kaitos/ Whale as asterism of vernal equinox. We find Pegasus also in Roman symbolism. In Egypt there was the calendar adjustment in 1159 BC and Egypt always influenced the Levant.

The historical cause is that the Heruli were in the end losers that lost their face in trying to make another "Odovacar" and grasp the western Roman throne. They disappeared from the scene and the uneducated Catholic condemned them as heretics. In spite of the fact that they were Christian. Our Scandinavian historians are very romanised and do not see that the Heruli together with Langobards fought the Ostro-Goths in the last fight.

We get the impression of conform society using abstracted icons for important ideas in the "Holly Order". Maybe it is natural for the well-organised upper class that arranged cavalry and seemingly also infantry. We know about the Cimbrian mercenaries. At the same time the Graeco-Roman world developed many gods/ idols for humanised virtues and naturally some ideas are the same everywhere in the world. In Scandinavia at the time we see the systematic order of symbolism.

We can compare the use of icons to when we outline the skeleton for an essay and write down the keywords. We do not need more than the words once we know the story. The icons from the Gerete, the neck-collar and the Mithras cult is just a society order. The simplest storing unit is when we crave symbols in a stick and that is surely the oldest way of keeping important things in memory.

Normally we look for the exceptional and BIG and the ones are not representative for the normal bracts, which are a few centimetres in diameter and weigh less than 5 grams. That means all bracts used 5 kilos out of 60 and the neckrings plus the horns took maybe 20 kilos. We can speculate that some bretwalda/ overlord have carried this as distinguishing mark, but else the small bracts seem to have been adornment for women and many finds are from female graves.

The neckrings and the hoards gives the impression that the gold was owned by the collective and the bract was given like the Roman finger rings as appreciation and forwarded to Lady of the House. There are nearly 600 finds of them in Scandinavia. We learn in Beowulf that the hero brought the spoils to the Lady and then she gave an arm ring to the hero as reward.

Some of the coins from Doorestad have the Stag in centre and often three symbols for the moon year. On some coins there are four heads in the border for the sun year. A few early Danish coins have symbols from the Animal Round and here the Horse stands with the forefeet in the vernal ritual place. Others have on the reverse a cross for sun year and maybe crescents. King Canute copied the English use of the king on one side and in the same style as on Roman coins, some are more or less copying in fact.

If we look at official seals and coinage since the very early days they have always symbols for the time ritual and when a person it was the king as leader of ritual or as in Rome Pontifex Maximus. The golden bracts are not coins but as whole they present the same custom with symbolism from the World Order.

On rune stones the dominating animal is the snake or worm usually surrounding the stone. Sometimes there is an Animal that could sometimes be the Horse and sometimes the Fenris. The Sigurd stone is shown above and there is another Gökstone drawn by an artist with distance to the topic I think. Sometimes humour shine through in ancient messages -;). It is the last flowering of the many thousand years old symbolism in Scandinavia

Laws in progress

For long, I believed that the wedding scene could not be misinterpreted when ceremony the master consecrate a pair that are united with a cloth … still use in some places. But lately we have the site of Swedish TV about "Stone-carvers". The interpreters rotate the couple 90 degrees and see it as intercourse. They forget then the man with the ceremonial axe. Maybe else they would see the scene as action of three alternatively think that he is killing the couple. Intend what the conspiring mind could see -;)

I am always ready to defend our ancestors and at the same time I defend sound science. That kind of interpreters lack a scientific attitude and a fundamental knowledge about what our rock carvings are about. The meaning carrying part in rock art is that they mostly signed/sketched ritual laws and rules for the society. We have that as fundamental reference's whenever we interpret rock carvings. It is not enough that one sees three or four rock carvings in Bohuslen. We must grasp the wholeness.

We must have the confidence that our ancestors were rational people and we must have the attitude that the rock messages are a supervisor category where they abstracted the society to find eternal common rules. Our Nordic research suffers from lacking references and that they show many alternative solutions that could not be valid at the same time. It is just confusing with no bonds to reality. I do not mention the wildest speculations here.

The work with early laws got me to realize that a lot of what is published about rock carvings and the antiquity's society builds on primitive, amateurish speculation without systematic and objective frameworks pretending the nature of early societies. They separate from the physical sciences that use various measurement methods and clear references. The science of rock carvings started in late 19^th century with Lauritz Baltzer who nearly exactly documented many rock carvings. The interpreting is very young and the biggest obstacle is preconceived ideas and lack of real knowledge about societies of that time. We have to know the people before we can understand their art and laws.

I always come back to the fact that in Sweden until 1981 the faculty of religion was responsible for interpreting ancient ideas beyond Christianity. The first obstacle is the use of the Germanic word avgud/ Abgott that put the frame of disparaging attitude on possible idol/ god figures on the rocks. It is important when we see many of the rock scenes as ancient laws. We should threat our ancestors in the same way as we look at small and big religions in our present world. It is a question about freedom of religion and ideas and seeing our ancestors as genetic relatives. Our ancestors are nearer us than people of the Trobiands.

Around 60 years ago they told me that this motif must be "primitive pursuit magic" of hunters seen as a very low class of humankind. And we know about the primitive men that hunted down a woman with a club and draw her in her hair to the cave. I have experienced that many people do not recognise all details in a motif and quickly make an opinion.

It is natural that the "first look" wants to see the meaning at once and then figurative images are easier than symbols that need thinking and solving. If they occur more than one of a kind it is a conventions. Most figures on the rocks are "sticky" and schematic telling that the message was the topic to be stored as eternal memory. If they wanted they made very artistic drawings and especially of animals even on Scandinavian rocks in Bronze Age.

Here I think about our experiences when we in our first school were learning letters and numerals. Our old teacher thought that a long stick was good for knocking civilisation into our heads. I wonder how youngsters those days learnt abstract symbols. We know from Sumerian schools that at that time the methods were much the same as in mine? Conclusion, learning abstracted things is not easy.

Roughly said historians use texts and textual fragments as "secure" fact. However usually they have to see for contexts and what was the real intention behind a text. That is why their perspective stops in first millennium BC sin there are no literature from Europe and Middle East before that. In my lifetime I have noticed the rethinking in many questions and history is always relative. Every new generation has to find its own version. About Germanic laws one comes only around 1500 years backward.

We need a wide definition of the term law =collection binding traditional rules in a society. The difficulty comes in our time when we go to ancient periods without black on white typed laws. In scientific sense, the concept should of course be applicable on all types of societies where we can recognise a state of rules for the game and for people within the society. We must understand metaphors and simple symbolism. The "moon-law" gave the pace of the cycle of the moon and they could tie their work and rituals to that. It was delegation in time and maybe with elected leaders of the period. Their life became tradition and also rules of behaviour were included in this

The core in the idea of law is independent of time. Still we need to see the categories that separate cultures and times. The early cultures just needed the time-law as calendar. Agriculture needed also continuous rituals that kept advises of methods alive. They call it civilisation since that kind of society openly educates new generations. In our days, the agriculture is nearly minutely defined in laws and by old customs, while the factories often closes for insight. For the farmers it is nearly old heritage if we look at medieval code of by-law used for the season from sowing to slaughter in autumn or at Christmas in my childhood. My memories are from the 1940 - 50ies and I do not know much about the modern specialised farming that is industrialised.

It is significant that civilisation is born with agriculture and concentration of people to a place. Today's knowledge tells us that the cradle of farming civilisation lies in Kurdistan where einkorn wheat was invented and they build shrines nearly at the same time in Nevalli Core and Gobekli Tepe maybe 10000 years ago. The function of a shrine is to be the meeting place and home of the idols connected to the labour.

We see that Inanna get the means to measure up the arable lands and she is 'first to plough' every spring in Uruk … it was custom in Japan until 20^th century for the emperor. We used also rope and ropes until the decimal system was introduced in 1877. Another thumb rule belonged to "ploughing three furrows" or the "three steps to Underworld" as reminders of the methods.

The idols have a crown of quadruple bullhorns. The horns could be read "vernal equinox" and used in late times. Then it meant that they parted the night sky with the compass rose and vernal star in Taurus/ Oxen. This ties it to the animal round. Some historians would maybe say it is the cosmic connection. That is incorrect since they tied the calendar to a grid of asterisms that could be related to the stars we see, however they alter in pace with precession.

They were grounded people and would not speculate in spiritual things. The tales of Etana is about staying on ground and know the limits. Those ends even in old Nordic thrusting in faith and take the world as it comes and not bother about things outside the normal life and space. If the Sumerians had tried to see the evolution as a creator they would probably have seen the "creator" as a giant squid embracing the world so that it could create everything around the globe in no time

The logic of ritual society with humanised idols is near to mankind since we normally compare everything with ourselves. The gods were role models and people should take the role. That means that the semantics lead to living in the idol's name and that is why we meet the dative with and agent in the early society. Observe that in Sumerian texts the gods have a star as attribute telling about the heavenly virtual world. It is beginning of the historical process that leads to the male patriarchy in Rome. From being a priestking living in the name of his gods he became a worldly king and soon the ritual was separated from kingship. There are many steps on that evolution that have many variations from place to place and time to time.

The Germanic culture wrote down laws almost at the same time as the Romans published 547 AD "The Law of twelve tables" … the title sounds like loan from the Bible and Moose tablets. Soon came the law of Visigoths, Burgundians and the Frank's Salian Law before 500 AD. I think historians have misunderstood and suppose that these folks copied Roman law. Maybe that is caused by the fact that the folks wrote a special Romano Version in 6^th century for the romanised people within their kingdoms. The most mentioned Justinian Corpus Juris Civilis came many decades after these first laws.

We have to remember that these folks originated in old Germania. The Franks came from Westphalia and the Burgunds and Visigoths from Poland and that area. Like the Romans they wrote ethnic laws and preserved old tradition. Other tribes such as Vandali, Heruli, Rugi and Ostrogoths disappear in middle 6^th century. For Scandinavia we can join the thread to the Anglo Saxon world and the earliest written Law of Kent around 600 AD. Next migration is after 800 AD and we get the Danelaw in northern England. The core is the by-law kept by the villages as order especially during the season.

About the Anglo Saxons we learn that initially the tribes were lead by bretwalda with Elle as first overlord. Seemingly they elected new overlord later. The Anglians came in villages lead by their aldermen = yearmen. That tells us it was a league of tribes with the lead of elected bretwalda decide by all men = thing. Some generations later we find kings in the lead and they did not lead the clear co-operation between tribes and with the people. We find in Kent ca 600 AD king Aethelbirth's doomas as the first laws. In Nordic use "king" was in the beginning surely "cyn-ing" leader of the folkland and for a period we have many kings before what we call kingdoms were created around 1000 AD

The Germanic laws were written out of need. Once the upper class settled in a new kingdom they needed laws as protection for the people as well as for the king and his official. The law created thrust in the kings as highest judge and guaranty of tradition. The upper class took over the feudal estates in France and Spain and became a class outside the peasant's by-law. We know the system better from medieval times.

In Sweden the feudal order of 1280 stated that the nobility should furnish the kingdom with riders and is responsible for defence and in turn is free of taxes. After that we see growth of estates outside the common land of peasants. Many of the estates are called "torp" that in law means "taken out of kings or not used land" The size was for a family and 1/4 of the normal village. It is like hide in England. In the beginning the evolution was no interference to the by-law collective. Soon the king has to fight the church and nobility that tried to get hands on all land and then the king got no taxes. Law is a continuous process … the medieval law is about 50 pages. Last time I looked at our laws I saw it is 1180 compressed pages with small letters.

When I grew up in the 1940 - 50:ies there was a lot of nationalism due to the period with German occupation. Old customs and old culture was drawn to light. We children played what we believed were all games "among men". With tree sword we fought our envig = duel. We changed blood on real and my blood-brother Erik was Holger Danske and I was Bjorn the old Bear. In spring elder youngsters celebrated the Spring Bride and rode around in wagon with mounting on the horse/ horses that reminded of the late Bronze Age mountings. The normal marriage was celebrated in the same way.

I think there are many ideas out there created by Christian will to lower the reputation of Pre-Christian "pagans". About duel they usually use the argument from Kormak's Saga 1250 - 1300 AD when the author fantasise about the Norse king Harald Fairhair who lived 500 years before the author. The duel sounds very heroized and dramatised and it occurs in many sagas and as we know they are fiction. Since antiquity authors were good copycats. However some principles/ concepts were common.

They tell the duel has to be on a small islet holm near land so it was easy to keep track of the companies that maybe followed. It indicates that violence was not allowed in the society with order. The idea was also used for market place birke/ ornum as places with special law. It seems that the feudal estate belonged to the principle. Later many of them were called torp. But it is much more than the physical object since it is abstracted as a place outside normal community. My vicarage has the name after an initial "holmstake" that is an estate taken out of the common. We could say the idea also occurs when new settlers/ Vikings usually settled on an islet to recognise and the holm was outside common land, examples are Isle of Wight and Thanet.

Except some sagas from Island and Norway I do not think we have any evidence of blood revenge. Maybe Christian analysers have drawn conclusions like "guilt by association" when they have read about the wergeld for manslaughter and thought it must be normal life. Not better when they read the long list of prejudices of fines for injuries. Or maybe they read Mose law and about the fights in the Bible who knows. As I show the thesis "an eye for an eye" … is not valid in Northern mentality and it is not in line with many other common rules.

It would not be natural with many thieves in the collective society with little owning of things. I think the codes about defame initially slowed down and prevent more serious crimes. In the Salian law to be called fox or hare was sentenced to 3 shilling, while calling whore costs 45 shilling. In the doom books from 16^th century Dal defame occurs especially in first half of the century. There were not too many and items for the things and they were often cancelled. Anyway it was amusement for the assembly to listen to what was more like quarrel. I wrote down one sentence from a girl who slay a man with a peel, "Now I hit you with the peel, now you are not man any more"

The Norse medieval price list of fines tells us  that 1 tomb 9000 Euro; long finger 3000 Euro; little finger 800 Euro; hand or foot 90000 and if both the double. The wergeld of the Gulating sounds very high compared to 16^th century Dal. Anyway the family and the killer should pay 189 cows, however they were small those days. They paid/ got in relation to degree of relationship on both sides. The system of wergeld and cash fines for injury and other crimes is pure Germanic. Inheritance and owning are not as old as by-law and crime codes.

In Rome housefather owned his wife and could use the entire household as he wishes. There is a great difference between Roman paterfamiliar as individual right and the Germanic collective where son and daughter inherited equally in most tribes. Exceptions are Norway where the oldest son inherited the estate and it was the same at Gotland. When we learn that they have found 1600 foundations Iron Age houses at Gotland we understand that they could not split the estates and then they lived in big families. In the end that is the most rational as long as the members can keep peace?

The Germanic law was based on what we today call "equal within the law". That meant there should be a balance between members of society. Crime and such things were simply disturbing the balance. We can see long evolution of freeing mankind from the abstract deities as in Anatolia. As long as there were no differences between the leaders/ merchants and the people no rules were needed. With feudalism and trade the upper class and the merchants needed to be protected from the people, but the people needed also protection against misuse of power. It was a long process and Sweden got the feudal order as late as in 1280 AD. Before that some monk wrote that the peasants lost their freedom when general taxation was introduced in 1247 AD

The wergeld and fines were compensation to the victim to be equal again. Some minor part of the fine went to the court/ all men for costs. The sin of Christianity and revenge was nothing when the victim and his family needed the compensation. Before the kings there was no official bailif to collect the fines so it was something for "all men". King Canute introduced the bailif in the communities and surely earlier kings and lords kept some private fiscal to collect tributes and such things.

We can not have moral objections about the antiquity laws since we do not have all details. Having moral is a kind of comparing with our frames and halters, not really knowing the other side. We behave then unfairly. We have not the knowledge to know about the arguments in systems where social security was included in the whole system. The deep humanity in laws is that they should protect the weak and innocent. We meet that in pictorials as well as in early laws of Sumer-Babylon. Feudalism and the split in two main classes accelerated the need for defining everyone's rights. That work is still going on. The history of law is much older than written evidence.

My interest for laws rose out of necessity in childhood. My fosterfather has some problem in keeping his temper and he often sought the simple way of using force on my ears. When I told him that it is not right he tried to say generally that "it is the law" and sometimes even the fundamental law however children do not understand metaphors. As soon as learnt to read I borrowed the law at school that holds the folk's library.

At that time the law was in the size of a novel. It was easier than the later medieval laws 50 pages that are clear but need thing to really understand. Anyway thinking about these things helped me a lot since The Man understood that I do not take too much. The law is the only protection for the weak. However it depends on how the law is supervised. I saw never a supervisor in my childhood and had to manage on my own. That gave me a lot of self-confidence.

Scandinavian laws have in the introduction sentences about the meaning and purpose. Many of them state "Law build the land" and they give the impression that just that land invented it. Still we have the feeling of ethnic laws for a restricted area. I would like to see wider look at least here in Scandinavia since we are very alike.

Nowadays Swedish law book is more than 1200 pages with small letters and references to libraries with clarifying comments. They build and build and the law is never finished. However I think the law is nowadays more like chaos and no normal person can grasp. I have the irony to say that it feed the defence counsel the most.

I do not give a dime for those modern thinkers about "natural right" when they try to create abstract theories. Law should be tied to humankind and the environment and our laws are born out of custom and tradition. Of course I know that philosophers in my young days tried to solve world problems by formulating words and theories. But Wittgenstein told us in his last words that "If you do not understand what you think or write, better keep your mouth shut" Too many words and theories drive to the point of chaos with no order.