2021. április 10., szombat

The origins of Hunnish Runic Writing (18) Székely script of the Huns

 

Székely script of the Huns

 

According to chronicles and traditions, the Székelys arrived in the Carpathian Basin not at the time of Árpád’s conquest, but several centuries earlier, at the same time as Attila and the Huns. This is supported by Bóna István’s publication on Hunnish buckles and other objects of the 5th century, which are decorated with Székely characters chiseled into the metal or inlaid with jewels in cells. The runes “m,” “us” and “s” have been chiseled twice (once from left to right and once from right to left) in the 9th century Avar-Hunnish saltcellar from Sopronkõhida,  and mean “magas õs sarok” (high ancient corner). The inscriptions on Hunnish objects (Figs. 10, 22, 25) are occasionally hieroglyphic.

After the first publication of these Hunnish inscriptions (Varga/1996) I received a Hunnish bronze fibula from Fekete András. Its source is not known exactly but presumably it was somewhere in Hungary. In addition to a three-letter inscription, it also bears a symbol compiled by runes (representing the letters “s”) ( see Fig. 25).[1] Although such short inscriptions can be made understandable in any language, in this case the Székelys' traditions of Hunnish origin, Székely character forms, and the common mythical connections of the graphic forms and the inscriptions give us considerable help.

At the bottom of the fibula there are four Székely runes “s” (sarok = corner; a symbol for mountain), representing the mountain of mountains, the largest mountain. The Huns usually depicted the North Pole (which was the religiously respected and personified rotation axis of the Earth) this way. Most often there are only three hills drawn on similar Hunnish representations; they are the archetypes of the triple hill of the Hungarian coat of arms.

At the top there are three readable runes. Above and below them two horizontal lines represent the edges of an imaginary tally-stick, or perhaps just serve to separate the runes.

It cannot be considered Turkish, as the character in the middle does not exist in Turkish script. On the other hand, all three characters can be found among German runic characters. The first two characters stand for the sounds “i” and “ng” in the early or common runic script of Central Europe, which was in use between the 3rd and 8th centuries. The third character appeared only after the 8th century in Sweden where it was used for the sound “p,” “b,” or “mb.”  The question is whether we should read these German sounds together and interpret their meaning.

All three characters can be found in the Greek alphabet as well. According to Priscos, the Huns were familiar with the Greek language. It could follow from this that the Huns, like the Parthians, knew and used Greek script. It is also supported by some presumably Hunnish inscriptions written with Greek letters. In Greek the short inscription on the fibula would read iak, whose meaning, however, eludes me.

There is another reason for not reading it as a Greek inscription. Character “us” on the relics introduced earlier (Fig. 22) is unknown in Greek (though the shape of “ph” is similar). Therefore, we should suppose that the Huns had a strictly religious script which is identical with the ancestor of Székely script (which contains the character “us”) and another script of Greek letters.

Although this possibility cannot be ruled out, one meaningless word is not a firm basis for supposing that the inscription on the fibula is another (Greek-based) Hunnish script. The Huns applied Greek script mainly in diplomacy, and only secondarily on jewelry. The only example where Greek script was used on a Hunnish jewel is the Holy Crown, but it is a jewel of “diplomatic significance.”

Reading the letters on the fibula from right to left with the help of the Székely alphabet, they had no meaning either. As it is not a tally-stick, in which case there would be a good reason to read from right to left, I have tried to read the characters from left to right as for example on the Avar-Hunnish salt-cellar of Sopronkõhida.

The first character from the left is the Székely rune “sz” (Fig. 26). Compared to the vertical orientation used today, this Hunnish character was engraved into the bronze with a slight left tilt. It is similar to the “sz” runes in the character sets of Kapossi Sámuel (around 1700), Bél Mátyás (1718), and Oertelius (before 1746), and in the Székely alphabet in the register of births of the Nagybánya Calvinist Church.

Székely “sz” is identical with Turkish “sz,” while the “sz” character in some scripts of Asia Minor (Lydian and Lykian) is a vertical wavy line (Meriggi/1976/311). It is surprisingly similar to Kaposi’s and Bél’s above mentioned wavy “sz” characters and draws attention to the wavy and left slanted “sz” character in Oertelius's Székely character set. The vertical wave resembles Kajoni's “ü” (ügy, folyó = case, river) character, which is similar to a representation of the Milky Way on a silver cup from the 15th c.[2] (Fig. 26), but in the latter case it might also stand for character “ak” (Oceanos, patak = pat(er) Óg = brook, father Og).

These variants can be interpreted with the help of mythology. Earlier we derived the vertical form of Székely “sz” from the representation of the tree supporting the sky, and its phonetic form from the words “szár/szál” (stem, thread) (Varga/1993/72).

In Finno-Ugrian mythology, this sky-high tree is identified as the Milky Way and can be represented as a river by a wave or a scroll (the symbol of a crest rolling up to the sky). That is, these character variants are controversial only if they are regarded as letters; they unanimously refer to the Milky Way when regarded as hieroglyphs.

That is why elsewhere the Székelys have used the hooked form of Oertilius’s “sz” character to mark “j” (jó “folyó” = good river) (cf. Figs. 4, 11, 15, 17, 26, 36).

What is important for us from all the above is that the slightly left-slanted “sz” is not a special curiosity, but belongs to the tradition of the characters representing the Milky Way.

 

Fig. 26 The parallels of the first (left) character on the Hunnish fibula (above), and the representation of the Milky Way on a 15th c. silver cup with wave-formed runes (Székely “ak” or Turkish “a”) (adopted from Fehér/1995; below)

 

Fig. 27 The parallels of the second (middle) character on the Hunnish fibula

 

Fig. 28 The parallels of the third (right) character on the Hunnish fibula

 

The middle character on the fibula (Fig. 27) is identical with the Székely rune “a” (Anat, anya = Anat, mother) and has no exact equivalent in the Turkish alphabet.[3] According to Szekeres István's interpretation, this Székely character can be related to the Sumerian ideograph “woman,” the Chinese ideograph “(married) woman, mother,” the Old-Turkish character “k” (kadin = woman), and the mirror image of the German character “w” (weib = woman) (Szekeres/1993/87). Greek “a” (alpha) and the character “a” in some scripts of Asia Minor (Carian, Lydian and Lykian) (Meriggi/1976/311) are also similar to the middle character in the fibula. Phoenician script uses similar characters for the sounds “´” (alef = ox), “b” (béth = house), “d” (dáleth = door), and “r” (rés = head) (Kéki/1971/82).

The origin of the third (right) Hunnish character, which can be described as a two-tooth comb, is more difficult to define, though the same “ö/õ” character can be found in the inscription of Csíkszentmárton (Fig. 28), and its more cursive forms in the characters used by Bél Mátyás (1718), Szentkirályi Sámuel (1730), and the Nagybánya Calvinist Church (1820). However, there are 5-6 totally different characters known in Székely inscriptions which can all represent the sound “ö/ü.” The “ö” character in Kajoni's alphabet represents the sound “ü” in Marsigli's runic calendar and in the Nikolsburg alphabet.

These fit the fact that the “ö/õ” sound itself developed at a relatively late time in the Hungarian language. Even a few centuries ago, for example the name of Körmend was written as Kürmend in Latin-Hungarian scripts. It can hardly be certain, therefore, that this rune represented the sound “ö” in Hunnish times.

In the case of the third character, formal parallels in other scripts must be considered to define its phonetic form and character name. These parallels are the Turkish “k” of Orchon, the German “b” rune, the Chinese “fou” (big mound, earthen hill), Phoenician “´” (alef =ox) and the Latin character “k” (Fig. 28).

The Turkish “k” of Orchon which was used before or after “ö/ü” (that is the character for the “ök,” “ük,” “kö,” “kü” syllabic groups) is similar to a two-teeth comb. This syllabic group is represented in the Turkish script of Yenisey by two hills standing on their sides, and this more graphic variation can contribute to the interpretation of the above Hunnish characters. In Székely script, the two hills standing on their sides represent “m” (magas = high). As a Hungarian pictograph, the range of hills - sometimes standing on their sides - is a symbol for the road leading to Heaven, the World Mountain. It can also be found on a Hunnish strap-end (Figs. 4, 10, 15).

To sum it up, the third character on the fibula refers to hills, mountains, hills forming stairs, a road leading upwards.

The northern variant (Swedish, Norwegian) of German runic script also contains a character with a two-tooth comb form, character “p/b/mb” (bjarkan). Its equivalent sign in the Danish and early (common) character sets also represents two mountains standing on their sides.

One of the variants of Chinese fou “large mountain, primary mountain” (sign 1108/b of Karlgren) represents three hills on their sides, while variant 1108/c has a three-tooth comb form (Fig. 28).

Considering the above phonetic forms, character names and pictures, the name of the pictorial sign representing personified mountains stood on their sides could be (stone). The Finnish god-name Ukko (“ük kõ” -ancient stone) can also be related to this hieroglyph. Stone is a god-symbol; this genetic relationship is the reason for the similarity between the English word stone and the Hungarian word isten (god).

The linear variant, the two-tooth comb, however could have also been interpreted as the spinal column and the two horns of an ox (based on the reasoning that Baál, the mountain god appointed a bull to be his heir). That is why we could just as well choose the sign name ökör (ox =cf. Turkish öküz) for linear sign variants, if the word ökör has developed from the compounds “ük úr” (ancient lord) or “ék úr” (precious lord) and was the symbol of a mountain (hegy)-god due to its peaky (hegyes) horns.

The third sign of the fibula (hieroglyph “kõ” =stone, “Ük kõ” =ancient stone, “Ük úr” =ancient lord, or “ökör” =ox) could represent the sound “k” in Hunnish, just as in later Turkish or in Latin today. Later (after the Hunnish period?) its sound value must have changed to “ö,” because there were several “k” characters in Székely (there are two of them even now), but perhaps there was no “ö.”

Development of the Hungarian language - the development of a separate “ö” sound - could have made it necessary to apply the “kõ” (stone; ökör=ox) sign to represent “ö.” This Turkish syllabic group sign could have developed in connection with the Hungarian words (stone), ük (ancient), ék (precious), ökör (ox), etc.

Therefore, the three characters on the fibula should be read letter by letter as szak, which means “area, country” and is still used in the compound észak (North; éj szak = the territory of the night). The inscription could also be read as szakõ (szent kõ =holy stone) on the pattern of the Obi-Ugrian word sanki meaning “great god,” which is logical, based on the imagined world mountain located at the North Pole and represented on the fibula.

The sza+ “holy stone” interpretation is also supported by the following meanings of the related word szakáll (beard): “tail of a comet,” “the down on certain fruits or seeds,” “dottle in meerschaum pipe,” “old man,” “hump on a loaf of bread,” “a salient row of bricks under the chimney ledge,” which all refer to personification or some kind of protrusion. The North Pole (the column of the world) is a personified protrusion. As far as I know, the Hungarians have not connected a similar image to any of the other cardinal points (South, West or East), that is why the compounds keletszak and nyugatszak would make no sense, while the rarely used expression “délszaki növény” (southern tropical plant) seems to have developed by neologism.

The interpretation észak deduced from szakõ and szak, however, appears to be more likely, because the rules of vowel omission make it possible to pronounce the first sound é before szak. That is, the Hungarian word észak was written in Székely letters on the Hunnish fibula.

The three-letter inscription and the column of the world beneath it form an organic system and contribute to each other's interpretation.

Considering its image, the fibula could be a royal symbol. However, its simple execution renders it very probable to be a badge of military rank. At a warrior’s funeral the fibula, normally hanging down, was turned up and put into the graves to show the dead man's soul the way up to Heaven. Grave finds from Hunnish graves of Nagyszéksós and Hungarian graves in the region of upper Tisza river from the period of the conquest confirm the existence of this custom.



[1] This cast bronze ornament from the Carpathian Basin has a single (corroded) iron stud at the back. I showed it to four well-known archaeologists. According to Kornél Bakay and István Erdélyi it is a Hunnish fibula (or a fibula from the Hunnish times) of peculiar shape. Based on its technology typical of the times before the Avar-era Csanád Bálint and Mrs Andrea Vaday Hadházi defined it as a 3rd – 5th c saddlery decoration (whose shape has no exact equivalent). They all agreed that the object and its chiseled inscription are authentic and from the same time. I want to thank them hereby for their kind assistance.

The iron stud is behind the bottom "s" rune, so the object could normally have been hanging upside down and could be turned to the position shown in the figure only at funerals (following the Hunnish-Hungarian idea of a mirror-like the afterworld).

[2] The silver cup, whose origin is not known, was found in the prairie of Keresztúr in Torontál county. The Milky Way and its gap can be recognized in its center, with Mount Ararat and the four holy rivers below. The rivers receive their water from the Milky Way (adapted from Fehér/1995/98).

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