The origins of Hunnish Runic Writing (22) Ligatures that survived millennia

 

Ligatures that survived millennia

 

One of the sign montages that prove the existence of a millennia-old writing tradition is the Énlaka ligature “eGY USTen” (only god). It has several variants from different times and places, but all have preserved the same symbolic meaning and pictorial form. Despite its linear structure, an understanding of mythology and astronomy suggests its identification with personified Milky Way. Its ligature variants all contain the rune “us” (õs = ancient, predecessor). It is combined with either rune “gy” (egy = one), “d” (Du, Don) or with “nt/tn” (ten) or sometimes with two of them. In Székely they can be read as “Isten” (God), “Du isten,” “Õs Du,” “Egy Õs” or “Egy Isten” (Fig. 30).

This ancient ligature has survived in nearly identical variations in the Hittite rock pantheon in Yasilikaya, on the rock drawings in Khwarism and Mongolia, on a Hunnish strap-end (Bóna/1993/114), on the Avar golden objects of Nagyszentmiklós, on Hungarian belt buckles from the 9th c. (Fodor/1996/84), on Saint Imre’s coronation robe (Fig. 12), and on the ceiling panels in the Énlaka Unitarian church (Fig. 14). They are undoubtedly variants of the same sign, as its complexity rules out the possibility of coincidental similarities (Fig. 30).

A review of the areas where some of its components were in use reveal where the ligature was understood, who could “read” it, and what it meant to them.

Rune “us” (õs, ancient) represents the gap of the Milky Way, the part of the sky where the Sun rises at Christmas, where the Sun god appears every year at the time of the winter solstice (Fig. 31).  There is no equivalent to the rune “us” in the Turkish alphabets published by various authors. Vasilyev (1983/145) its only occurrence. The character represents the “u/ut” sound, which is usually indicated by a dot in a circle (similar in shape to the Szekely “ly”).

I found three examples of this sign on the Mas d'Azil pebbles of the Ice Age (Fig. 29). It is connected to the Sumerian Sun-god symbol (Labat 71.), to Karlgren’s 1007th Chinese sign,[1] and to the sign of god in Hittite hieroglyph script (Doblhofer/1962/210). It also appears on prehistoric Palestinian and Californian-Indian rock drawings (Diringer/1963/39, 41), and among the Cretan linear A characters (Evans/1935/677), but the  meaning of these characters can only be guessed. On Siberian Bronze-Age rock drawings it appears as a head-dress ornament of shaman representations (Hoppál/1994/37, Fig. 32). Its meaning was also understood by the Khwarismians, Huns and Avars as well (Figs. 21, 30).

Its more pictorial representation is the Christian vesica (Hoppál/1990). It often occurs in models of the world or tulips on Hungarian folklore objects (Figs. 15, 16).

Rune “gy” (egy = one, only) has a shape of a double cross. The vertical stroke represents the Milky Way, while the horizontal ones model the orbit of the Sun at the time of the two solstices (cf. Jankovics/1994). It refers to one year of the Sun-god’s life.  It is the symbol of the egy (only) attribute of God, which is related to the German god Ygg, the tree of the world Yggdrasil, and the Hungarian ügy (river). Its Sumerian equivalent nun means “prince;” Chinese wang means “ruler,” among the Egyptian hieroglyphs it is “South,” a permanent attribute of the Pharaoh (Fig. 32). It symbolizes the ruler in the Hungarian coat of arms as well.

Rune “nt” -with anaptyctic “a” and “e”- is pronounced “ent” in the Nikolsburg Székely alphabet, “nt” in the Marsigli runic calendar and “ant” in Thelegdi’s alphabet. The Énlaka item shows that it is a ligature consisting of an “n” and a “t” rune which can be read either as “nt” from right to left or “tn” from left to right.

The ligature-variants in Fig. 30 are similar because their elements are identical. Therefore, we can conclude that, if the Énlaka ligature is compiled from Székely runes, the other related ligatures must have been made up from the prototypes of these runes as well, i.e. the Hittites engraved the prototypes or the relatives of Székely runes into the Yasilikaya rocks.

The occurrences of this ligature are signposts on the road between the homeland of the Székely script somewhere to the south of the Caucasus and the Székely-Hungarian Carpathian Basin.

 

Fig. 31 The parallels of rune “us”

Sumerian “Sun-God”; rock-drawing in California; Hittite hieroglyph “god”; Chinese “middle, main road”; shaman representations; painted egg from Hétfalu with the representation of the Milky Way; Hungarian folk vesica; Christian vesica; “God's something” on a roofing tile from Velemér; “ancient Sun-god solar signs on Saman drums adapted from Hoppál; “God's eye” sign on a plate from Vámfalu; “good predecessor” Mongolian rock drawing adapted from Dorz

 

Nevertheless, it still does not prove that Székely script originates from Hittite hieroglyphic script. Neither the Indo-European-like language of the late Hittites nor the inflectional languages of Hattic and Hurrian are the same as the Hungarian language, but they could have preserved the remnants of an earlier related language, mythology, and sign system. “Hurrian was an inflectional language with chains of suffixes placed both after nouns and verbal prefixes. This method was also typical of Finno-Ugrian, but does not prove a historical connection.” (Albright/1998/5). The shapes of the general (late) Hittite hieroglyphic syllabic signs do not reveal any closer connections either. However, the script itself is called “wood writing” in contemporary texts, and texts engraved in rocks also follow the bustrophedon writing direction, because it was originally a runic script. That is, the Hittites were aware of the meaning of the Yazilikaya ligature, but they inherited the symbol from their predecessors.

 

Fig. 32 The parallels of rune “gy”

Sumerian nun “prince”; Chinese wang “ruler”; Egyptian “south”; Székely “gy” and its Énlaka variant; Hungarian ban silver denarius with double cross, Sun and Moon; Hungarian royal flag from around 1350; Hurrian seal with double cross, Sun and Moon

 

The ligature that preserved the name of the forefather Jima and survived in the Hunnish, Hungarian, American Indian and Moldavian-Hungarian variations (Figs. 4, 10) that we have described, hints at these predecessors. Its parallels can be found on the enamel-work of the Hungarian Holy Crown and on a Mongolian stone sculpture (Fig. 36).

Iranian mythology and this traditional sign (joining river- and mountain-symbols) have preserved the memory of the first king, Jima. According to the myths, he is the forefather of Mankind, the son of the Sun, the creator of civilization, the organizer of social structure, and the ruler of the world for the thousand years of the Golden Age. During his reign illness, old age, death, or immorality did not exist. He resides on the Holy Mountain and offers sacrifice for Anahita. He lit the first sacred fire in Khwarism. Jima built the first vara,[2] which Tolstov identified as the buildings in Khwarism, and Makkay János (Makkay/1995) as Scythian stepped earth pyramids, which served as places of sacrifice. The representation of this stepped tower temple is also found on Hunnish buckles (Bóna/1993/91). According to Zarathustra the Golden Age ended because of Jima's pride and falling into sin. A pseudo-historical myth was born saying that the symbol of power (hvarno) left Jima. Some mythological variations describe the transfer of hvarno to Zarathustra. The efforts of orthodox Zoroastrianism to reduce Jima's importance suggest the survival of an originally non-Iranian, but much earlier mythology and the rule of other peoples.

There are many examples suggesting that these other peoples could have been the ancestors and relatives of the Hungarians, e.g. the two Christ-representations on the Hungarian Holy Crown and the Mongolian rock-sculpture published by Kubarev (Fig. 36). In all probability they have preserved a Hunnish-Scythian tradition of representation that goes back to Hattic prototypes (Fig. 17). A unique feature of the pictures is the variations of the Székely rune “j” (jó, folyó = good, river) at prominent parts of the human body, e.g. shoulders, elbows, knees.

As a part of my lecture on the symbolic system of the Hungarian Holy Crown, Ludvig Rezsõ, a goldsmith and an expert on  the Hungarian Crown, showed his own photographs and panel-drawings of the Crown. Originally I stated, that the meaning of the “j”-shaped filigrees on the cross-strap (Fig. 11) carry a meaning connected to the myth of heroes born in water, and I counted Jesus Christ among these heroes. However, due to the lack of sufficiently high-quality photographs, I did not notice the scrolls on the four enameled pictures of the Holy Crown, two of which represent Christ.

As Ludvig Rezsõ stated in his presentation, during his researches he had noticed the special scrollwork in the enameled pictures of the Crown, and concluded that they must bear a special meaning. Here I would like to thank him for his important discovery and information - which are brilliant proofs of our theories on the origin of Székely script.

In the enameled pictures and on the Mongolian sculpture, shoulder, elbow and knee represent mountains according to the anthropomorphic view of the world and the organic views on statehood which can also be detected in the symbolism of the Hungarian Holy Crown. With the scrollwork superimposed on them they represent the montage of rivers and mountains. The man wearing these symbols is compared to the first man, the divine hero who emerged from the Chaos after the Flood and created an orderly world.

The montages have even preserved the sound value of Jima's name. Sound “j” can be recognized in the scrollwork in every case. The mountain-symbols beside the knees of Christ’s representation of the Crown are the equivalents of character “m” (Fig. 36). On the other enameled picture and on the Mongolian sculpture placement of the scrollwork on shoulders and elbows (mountain-symbols) indicate the “m” (magas = high) symbol.

The Hungarian Holy Crown, which is still a symbol of the Hungarian state, preserves an ancient myth, a view on statehood (we may call it constitution) recorded in hieroglyphs, that was created millennia before the oldest lines of the Avesta.

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[1] Karlgren 1007/a means "middle, main road" referring to the divine centre of world models (the place of the column of the world leading up to the sky) and the connection between Heaven and the Earth through the column of the world. Karlgren 1017/h means "the middle one: 2nd of brothers, 2nd of 3 months.” It can be interpreted in a similar way. The three mountains form the stem of the column of the world, and the mountain in the middle reaches up to the sky. The other sign meaning "main road" represents three mountains standing on their sides. These triple-hill shaped signs mean "descending from highness" (Karlgren 1015.) and "large hill, steps leading upwards" (Kralgren 1108.) in Chinese.

The similar triple hills on the lion-frescoes in Esztergom carry the same meaning. The centre of the world is represented by three hills even in the world model decorating the Hunnish silver buckle from Regöly and in the Hungarian coat of arms. One of the panel drawings on the Holy Crown represents Christ as the "great mountain" in the middle, which also served as an attribute of Assur and Enlil (Fig. 36).

[2] Vara is the descendant of the Sumerian word bar "mound" and Mesopotamian ziggurats. These tower temples are reflected in one of the existing Hunnish words, hunnivar, and in the Hungarian words vár, város.

Contents

Preface to the English edition	7.
Preface	9.
History of the scientific views on the origins of Székely runic script	10.
Principles of deriving the origins of Székely script	26.
The development of writing	28.
The shapes of runes and the objects they represent	29.
The mythology, names, and sound values of runes	32.
Rituals and runic script	35.
Types and number of characters	37.
Order of characters	39.
Direction of reading and characters	48.
Syllabic signs	52.
The regular use of syllable and vowel signs	55.
The birth of letter scripts	58.
Comparing of writing systems	61.
The academic historical-geographical preconception	68.
The Turkish connection	70.
What the historical sources say	71.
Székely script of the Huns	73.
The age of the development of Székely character forms	79.
The age of unification of Székely character sets	82.
Hungarian vocabulary connected to writing	87.
Ligatures that survived millennia	92.
Migrations of peoples	97.
Summary	101.
Bibliography	109.

Varga Géza

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