by Alfred Hamori
1995
from
HungarianMythsAndLegends Website
Such stories as the creation, the garden of Eden, the flood and the
angels of the Bible and other related religions, may have been
derived from the earliest literature of mankind. These stories were
first written down by the earliest literate civilization of man, the
Sumerian civilization over 5,500 years ago. Their nation was located
in southern Mesopotamia, but their influence spread from Eastern
Europe to India and Egypt. Most languages today have traces of
Sumerian loan words in them, even when not related to them.
Their language belonged to the "Ural-Altaian" language family of
Eurasia, which is unlike the Semitic, Indo-European or Indo-Chinese
in grammar and is more like Hungarian, Turkish, Finnish, and
Dravidian (of India). These languages share the largest amount of
vocabulary and what is much more important, a similar agglutinative
grammatical structure. Because of the very special place the
Sumerians have in human history, the Indo-European and Semitic
scholars have tried vainly to isolate them into a special category,
after they couldn't force them into their own language families. A
few enlightened Western European scholars however have stated that,
of all the living languages of the world, Hungarian has the most in
common with this ancient dead tongue.
In Sumerian mythology the "sons" of heaven, were categorized into
three main groups. The main group was capable of creating life and
able to have off- spring of their own. These were called the DINGIR.
The eunuch like second group was originally the servants of the main
group and was called the ANU-NAKI. The third group was known as the
EGIGI or IGIGI, which often had some specific task and outpost on
the planet. All of them may have came from beyond this planet and
lived it seemed to the locals for eternity. The
book of ENOCH also
talks of a group, which came as reinforcement later and were
racially different from the others, and these were to perform some
basic work for the "angels" among the human population. Their
governor according to ENOCH, was called SATANAIL. They are the ones
who broke the laws of heaven and took the daughters of men to be
their wives, and from them they had children. The punishment for
this was the flood, which was to allow a new start and to destroy
the mistakes of these fallen angels.
From the scanty literature available to us, such as the ancient
Sumerian and Babylonian literature, the Bible and the
Book of Enoch,
some people have generalized the basic characteristics of the 7
leading, archangels and their names. Christian O'Brian in his book
"The Genius of the Few", has used this method and has hit the nail
right on the head. The reason I believe that he is correct is
because I have tried a different approach, using ancient Sumerian
and Hungarian as a reference, and was able to substantiate his
claims. The definitions of the meaning of the titles of the
archangels which I define at the beginning of each name, all derive
from Christian O'Brians evaluation, based on ancient religious
literature and is followed by my linguistic analysis.
In our literature concerning the seven archangels the following
names are often listed:
-
Michael -A
militaristic guardian angel (NIN-URTA)
-
Gabriel -The governor
of Eden (NIN-LIL)
-
Uriel -Ruler of all,
surrounding Eden (EN-LIL)
-
Raphael -Healing
arts. (EN-KI)
-
Raguel -Judging and
monitoring
-
Sariel -Punishment of
crimes (Ner-gal/Ninurta)
-
Remiel -Responsible
for spreading the word & news
As is readily apparent, all these names
end with EL, which was the title of the "angels", just like the
"gods" of the Hebrews, the Elohim. I have included some of the
Sumerian equivalents of the names in brackets, known to us from
their mythology. The most detailed account of the activities of the
angels, is given by Enoch, who supposedly lived before the flood. He
was recruited by the angels to perform such duties as being a go
between, or messenger, between angels and men, and to be a scribe or
keeper of records. His accounts were written down and have been
passed on for thousands of years. His stories are very unusual, and
are the stories of a simple primitive man in the bewildering and
amazing world technically incomprehensible to man until recently.
At this point let us dispense with the religious view of what an
angel is and simply try to understand what the earliest civilization
of man handed down to us, without any preconceived bias. In the
words of the Sumerians, what we call angels, were called by them
ANU_NAKI meaning, "from or of the sky". AN meant "sky, heaven, high
and chief god" and NAK was the genitive & locative suffix which we
write separately as "OF". Similarly in Hungarian the Sumerian
AN
word is found as MANY, while the NAK suffix is also the
genitive/locative and means OF, or relationship. Variations of this
suffix are found in most Ural-Altaic languages to which Hungarian
belongs. However there is another unusual use of the Hungarian
suffix NAK, reserved for the highest administrative positions, which
originally served the king.
That is why prime minister (EL-NOK),
spokesman (SZO-NOK), treasurer (TAR-NOK), engineer (MER-NOK).. used
such titles. In ancient Sumerian city states, these most important
positions were held by the second rate angels, the ANU-NAKI. The
eastern neighbors of the Sumerians, the Elamites also used the
NAK
title for the king. Only after the ANUNAKI finally left was the
government handed over to the first human king, who was recorded to
be ETANA of the city of KISH. This same ETANA is in Hungarian
mythology as the father of the first empire builder, the great
hunter NIMROD, rather than the Biblical Kush. It is interesting that
certain eastern Scythian traditions call the ancestor of their
people Kush-Tana, a combination of the two. In Sumerian mythology,
unlike the Bible version, it was ETANA and not Nimrod, who wished to
visit heaven the home of the "gods", and he succeeded with the help
of an "eagle".
Returning to the meaning of the titles of the seven archangels, who
were the ruling council which directed the activities of the
"angels". If we remove the suffix EL, then we are left with their
functional title, when using the Sumerian language as our guide.
Sumerian IL, Akkadian ELI means "high, above,highness". Hungarian
fel=upward, fen=above, on=upon.
-
MICHA, MISH or MASH
(Michael),
refers to heroes/prince in ancient
Sumerian, as it does in Dravidian, Ugrian, and ancient Scythian
tongues. In Hungarian stories the "heroes" are often called
MISKA and hero tales are also called MESHE. The heroic name
refers to the military position of Michael as the guardian and
protector. The symbol of the hero is a
serpent
in Sumerian,
since it had a similar name, called MUSH.
In ancient cultures
the serpent was often the symbol of
rejuvenation, rebirth, healing as well as service and wisdom.
That is why the earliest Mesopotamian art represented the mother
goddess with a female body and a serpent-like head. This
tradition can be traced also in Scythian legends. Hungarian
tradition claims that they are also a Scythian race. In the
east, the dragon was also the title of heroes as well as a
symbol of fertility and wisdom. For these reasons in Hungarian
traditions the MISKA mug is in the shape of the upper torso of a
traditional Hungarian soldier, the hussar, with the serpent on
its belly. It was drunk in celebration of heroes and in
remembrance of family members, who have passed away.
-
GABR, GAVR (Gabriel),
was the female governor of Eden. If
we observe that the original Latin word for governor, was "GUBERnator",
then again the ancient GABR title is recognized. Like many
languages the B became V or was then deleted altogether, leaving
KOR to be the root word for government in Hungarian. According
to Sumerian tradition, the governor of Eden was often called
Nin-Ti,
"lady of life" who was responsible for "genetic engineering" in
our modern vernacular. She was the Baudug-Gasan "great bountiful
queen" and Nin-Mah "great mother" or as the
wife of lord En-Lil
she was called Nin-LIL, who helped create 7 prototypes of Homo
Sapiens from combining genetic material from wild primitive man
and a compatible angel. She was also called the lady of the
mountain "Nin-Hursag", since Eden was supposed to be located in
a mountain valley. Since in the Sumerian word Nin-Ti, "TI" also
meant rib, the later Babylonian translations of the "Lady of
Life" became "Lady of the Rib".
It was this corruption of her name
which lead in time to the Biblical Eve to be created from Adam's
"rib". While other angels were prone to have work in and out of
their colony, Nin-Lil's main responsibilities were in Eden. The
GUB root word in Sumerian means to stand or stay, while GUBA
meant to stand firm. (Hungarian Guba-szt). Similar to her name "hursag",
the Sumerian word "uru-zag" was also a synonym for
kingdom/territory as is "ursag/orszag" in Hungarian. The
name of
Eden in Sumerian accounts was called "kar-sag". While the
Sumerian word "Edin", which remained as the name of EDEN could
mean several things in Sumerian, such as "edin" (uncultivated
highlands, borderlands), or "e'-din" (the house of creation).
The great queen goddess in the Emegir Sumerian dialect was NIN,
similar to Magyar "Neni", while the "mother language" Emesu/Subar
dialect called the queen "Gasan", which is the source of the
Hungarian/Sabir? "Aszony", which up to the Middle Ages also
meant queen.
In early Mesopotamia, east of
Sumeria, the Elamites also called the queen-goddess "ASAN",
which is even more like modern Hungarian. No wonder that early
Hungarians called their beloved Great-Queen mother goddess Nagy-Aszony
or Boldog Aszony, which in Sumerian was also called BAU or BAU-DUG
GASZAN. Today all titles have lost their original meaning, just
as in English. Everyone has become a Sir and a Lady, no matter
how undeserving they are.
-
UR or AR (Uriel),
was the chief guardian and ruler of
earth. In Sumerian accounts he was normally called EN-LIL, the
chief "god" of earth and represented by the atmosphere and air.
In later ages the title UR was passed on to kings, whose chief
function came from their responsibilities as guardians of their
territories and their people. That is why the UR name means
guardian in Sumerian as well as hero and lord. In the ancient Hurrian language of
northern Mesopotamia, the UR name became IUR
meaning "king". The Hurrians also spoke a Ural-Altaic like
agglutinative language, just as the Sumerians and the Elamites.
Similarly in ancient Egyptian
UR
also meant king and kings were considered by them to be of
divine origin. In Hungarian the lords or kings are also known as
UR, while guards are also called similarly OR. This is also
similar to the Old Bulgar word "Ur-ugh", from their original
Hunnish language, before they were absorbed by their Slavic
subjects. Besides the title UR the name of EN-LIL is completely
understandable in Hungarian, since En was a title of lords, as
in the Hungarian pronoun ON today is the first person pronoun of
special respect. The word LIL refers to air and breath in
Sumerian as it does today in Hungarian Lel-ek, Lelk, Lehel and
so on. This is a common word in the western Ural-Altaic
languages.
The term LI in Sumerian however had another different meaning,
which referred to life, and was symbolized by a potted plant.
That is why he was the father of life and the soul/breath which
animates the material body. In Hungarian "Lelek", refers to soul
and "el" refers to life, while "lehel" the breath. Lel was also
a name of one of the great lords, during the Hungarian
settlement in the 9th century. Several Hungarian rulers of the
seven tribes/nations also had ancient Mesopotamian GOD names.
Arpad/Egyptian Erpat, Huba/Elamite Huba, Tohotom/Tehemtem
-ancient Iran, On-d/Sumerian An, Kende/Keykendi of ancient
Baktria the ancestor of the Hungarian Szemere clan.
-
RAPH or RAB or RAV
(Raphael),
is known as the archangel
responsible with the healing arts. In ancient times the shaman
was responsible with the healing arts. In Sumerian he was called
TAL-TAL, which in Hungarian is TAL-TOS. His method often
required communication with the spirits, who could heal the sick
and remove the evil spirits from the body. The Sumerian shaman
was no primitive, like many shamans in primitive societies are.
He knew and utilized hundreds of complex medicines, whose
ingredients scientists are studying today from their old
medicinal books. The Hungarian term REV, pronounced just like
the English RAVE, means the ecstatic trance in which the shaman
enters the other dimensions.
In Sumerian ARA also meant the
raving, howling sound made. The REV also means the "ferry" boat
which crosses a river. The other dimension (heaven or hell) was
often reached by crossing a symbolic river. In modern Hungarian
the medical doctor is called ORV-os, which is derived from the
ancient eastern word ARB-is, who were one of the seven priestly
casts of the old Magian religion of the Hungarians. They were
responsible with healing and were especially competent doctors.
Many early Hungarian skulls have been found showing surgical
marks, with the patients surviving the operation. The Hungarian
name for doctor uses the RAB or ARB variation of the root-word
found as part of the RAPH-ael name.
-
RAG (from RAGUEL),
was responsible with sentencing or
bringing to justice those who broke the laws. In ancient
Babylonian "RAGUMU" was the suit brought against the defendant.
Similarly in Hungarian "RAGA-lom" is the suit against the
defendant. The "lom" is just a suffix of abstract concepts. In
Sumerian the RIG word, which is the source of RAGUEL, simply
meant to talk or speech, with which a case is typically
presented to a council. Similarly REGE in Hungarian is a story
given in speech like sing song fashion, like a saga. It is also
related to the qualities of the voice (rikkan,rekedt). In old
Hungarian the REGOS were the bards who sang or told stories of
heroes and religion.
The council of elders, and the
subject of knowledge they represented in Sumerian is called TAN,
just as in Hungarian and several other Ural-Altaian languages,
including even Japanese. The decision which they brought
forward, based on deliberation by a judge, is called BAR in
Sumerian as it is in Hungarian BIRO=judge. The word is also
found in a close eastern relative of the Hungarian language, the
Chuvash, as BAR. The word was also adopted into English, through
the influence of the Huns. Even the remnant of the early
Akkadian-Babylonian word for lawyer UGIDU is found in modern
Hungarian Ugyved.
-
SAR (from SARIEL),
is responsible with the punishment
of the guilty, the guardian of their imprisonment who isolates
the criminals and "encloses" them in a penal holding area. In
Sumerian the SAR word also means to enclose. Similarly
SA means
inner, while SAG means inside. Sar also meant
3600 in Sumerian,
which was the closing of the circle and is related to the
somewhat idealized period of 360 days in a year. It was the
Sumerians who first divided the circle into 360 degrees.
Similarly in Hungarian ZAR means lock or enclose, while EZER
also means a thousand. The old Ural-Altaic number system, unlike
any others in the world, was based on 6 and 60, like Sumerian,
in which the decimal places were in multiples of 6 or 60. That
is why Hungarians still say "hatvany", when expressing the idea
of multiplying the effectiveness of something. This word is
derived from 60 (hatvan), the ancient multiplier.
There is a controversy of who or what ZARA-THUSTRA the founder
of the Magian religion was and when he actually lived. Some
mistakenly associate him with the early history of the Persians,
who were rather latecomers to the region of present Iran/Persia.
In the Bible it is the MAGI, who visited the newborn Christ
child in Bethlehem, since they prophesied his coming beforehand.
Indeed Christ was often called a Magian by the Jews, due to his
mother's Parthian ancestry. The earliest mention of the MAGI was
as one of the six ethnic tribes of the Madja (Mede) confederacy
of northern Mesopotamia, which was later conquered and absorbed
by the Persians. The Magi also settled in the eastern part of
the Persian Empire. The ancient and classical historians claim
that Zarathustra lived long before the coming of the ancestors
of the Persians around 500BC to Iran.
The early Greeks claim that he was
none other that Nimrod of the Bible, or Ninurta of the
Sumerians. This of course is impossible to substantiate now
because of all the legends which grew up around him over time.
The Biblical stories of Nimrod and Abraham, for example occurred
millenniums after the flood, long after the original Nimrod
supposedly ruled. According to the Babylonians 131 years after
the flood, while Hungarian Chronicles state 201 years. The
Hungarian number must be recalculated to compensate for the
ancient 60 based system, which results in 121. Could he be the
same as the archangel Sariel? Perhaps. It would explain the many
miraculous things that Zoroaster or Nimrod did, who was the
mythical father of the Scythians and Magyars.
-
REM, REV (from REMIEL),
is the most difficult of functions
to really characterize. He was supposed to be the messenger and
bringer of news and information. However the root word REM is
normally associated with welcome, gladness, happiness which is
RU and DUG in Sumerian. RA-GABA however means courier. In
English there is a wonderful parallel word to this association,
since REVEL is to enjoy something but REVEAL is to disclose
hidden information. Both of these words are related to REM.
These also associate with the definition of Raphael discussed
before. In Hungarian O-ROM is also happiness, as in ancient
Persian RAMA. However ROV and IR in Hungarian is to inscribe and
write, which is important for sending messages. The same word in
Sumerian is SAR and their scribes were called DUB-SAR. The
bringing of tidings and good news, was a cause of celebration
and good times it seems. Perhaps the following root words are
also part of the name of SAR; IR=to bring, RI=traverse
(Hungarian Yar), MU=a ship or vessel (Hungarian yar-MU).
The Sumerian "angels" were greatly revered before and after
their disappearance and in later ages were thought to be "gods".
Early Mesopotamia was populated by a host of non-semitic people
like the Sumerians, Subarians, Hurrians, Kasites, Elamites and
Medes who spoke similar languages. Every Sumerian city was
supposedly founded by one of these "angels", who lived for many
human lifetimes amongst the people. They however did eat, drink
and had children like humans and some even made serious mistakes
and broke the law. That is why many old religions gave such
human-like characteristics to these false "gods". The "angels"
themselves however believed in only one heavenly father, who was
called AN in Sumerian, and who lived in the sky or heaven, from
whence they also came. However not necessarily from the highest
"heaven" of AN. Perhaps this is why some of the ancient
religions of the Greeks, Babylonians, Egyptians had such a
multitude of "gods", who often were too human like for us to
consider them to be godlike.
In Sumerian the name of the highest god was called AN. However
there was another expression which often described him, as the
single, one and only god, with the term Isten. (Hungarian isten)
This term is often described to mean one, but was never used for
mathematics. In many central Asian languages the god of heaven
and sky was called TEN, or TENGRI, a word much like the Sumerian
DINGIR, meaning god or angel. The best description of the
meaning of ISTEN is found in the ancient book from Persia called
the DAB-ISTAN (book of god), written by a people before the
coming of the Persians. It talks of the perfect unity, the
uncreated creator, the ONE god of the universe as being ISTEN or
YSTEN. This same word was used by the Babylonians to mean
ONE
and only.
-
In Sumerian ASH=one, first and
TEN=
creator.
The chief creator of the gods was
called lord of the Earth "en-ki", who was also called
Daramah,
which has also been translated as great stagg, but which also
means creator in Hungarian as "terem-tö". His name perhaps
explains the origin of the Hungarian myth of origin, called the
legend of the stagg, which is often called a totemic origin
myth, but may in fact be just a symbolic legend, whose story is
recreated yearly as the movements of the constellation ursa
major and the birth and death of the seasons. That is described
in articles dealing with
the Legend of the Stagg.
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