2021. április 10., szombat

The origins of Hunnish Runic Writing (24) Summary

 

Summary

 

With the help of Székely script Sebestyén Gyula could find an explanation - the generally used runic writing technology of early ancient times - for the inconsistent writing direction of early Greek and Latin. He wrote, “Hungarian runic script is emerging from the fog of forgetfulness and uncertainty. What it can offer to the universal history of writing is one of the greatest wonders of epigraphy. ... Our nation was involved in ... the greatest inheritance of the Ancient World ... and could make good use of it.” It is only one of the series of wonders as Székely script can help solve other problems besides the secret of line direction. It can reveal several other circumstances of the development of writing, since the beginnings of Székely script are equivalent with the beginnings of writing itself.

To sum it up, Székely-Hungarian runic script is of Székely-Hungarian origin. After centuries of fruitless search for the language that served as the medium of transfer, this is the only obvious conclusion, based on mythological, linguistic, ethnological, and writing-historical parallels of Székely script.

The formal and substantive coincidences from all over the world, revealing Székely script’s genetic relations to other languages, indicate that it is an ancient script. The Hungarians' predecessors applied the achievements of their environment and influenced other writing systems. The common mythological background and continuous interaction through thousands of years resulted in parallels, but these do not prove that Székely script was adapted from some other writing system. They only demonstrate that Székely script is a determining factor of mankind’s writing culture, and an indispensable witness and participant in the origin and development of writing.

The character forms of Székely script developed from plan- and frontal-view[1] versions of a Neolithic model of the world, and from the model’s constituent symbols.[2] They illustrate Karl Faulmann’s views, that conventional, religious symbols were common to all ancient peoples, and the history of writing is nothing but the process through which the local, national variants of that common ancient alphabet developed.

The first applications of characters may have decorated ritual objects in the region around Mount Ararat or “Uruatri” (Lord Father) some time in the Ice Age. Evidence for this, however, comes only from later ages.

American Indian, Hunnish and Hungarian artists’ picture montages that represent rivers and mountains (ligatures “jm” standing for Jima, the progenitor of mankind) prove that at time the New World was being populated, the prototype of Székely script was already in use in Eurasia (Figs. 4, 10). The coincidences in the meaning of complex signs imply that Székely script is a direct descendant of the first known human phonetic sign system.[3]

Further research will determine whether the present sound values were attached to these two signs in the Ice Age or thousands of years later. For this we must know the exact schedule by which America became populated, when the first state-like organizations appeared and the nominal roll of the ancient American Indian gods and heroes. Was developed writing really needed only by people who lived in states? And what can we label as states anyway? On the basis of our present knowledge, it is difficult to imagine, that a phonetic script existed as early as the Ice Age. However, we must rely not on our imagination, but on existing relics of writing, even if the conclusions drawn from these upset all we have believed about the origin of writing so far.  The best evidence for the existence of such a Neolithic script is the annals of the Neolithic Mayas, who also used the Jima ligature.

This first script used characters similar to the Székely ones and marked the prototypes of Hungarian words, syllables and sounds. Of course we can only guess the linguistic features of that early age. However, the tradition-preserving characteristics of the Hungarian language and parallel Hittite, Hurrian and Sumerian sign names suggest that the prototype language of that time must have been inflectional. To mark the inflections it must have been able to mark independent sounds as well. The signs and letters, however, probably were not created at one time.

Traces of writing have survived in great numbers since 4000 BC. At that time seals were used generally, and seal-cylinders and pictographic clay-tablets began to appear (cf. Makkay/1990/52). On the other hand, the texts on durable materials cannot reflect the global writing culture of that age as e.g. texts engraved in wood have completely vanished. This is also the age of Sumerian script’s appearance, but there is disagreement on this. “... to a historian of writing the earliest possible date would seem to be the most acceptable,” wrote Gelb (1952/63). We cannot but agree with him, considering all the above mentioned early inscriptions and connections.

The first Sumerian pictographic script could have a relationship with an early migratory script, which was similar to Székely and could have been taken by the first Sumerian settlers from their homeland at the North (Harali?). That is why the shape, name and meaning of Székely runes could be related simultaneously to American Indian, Alvao, Sumerian, and Chinese scripts.

The character order starting with abd was composed on the basis of earlier rituals and the names of the divine triad. Originally it could have been an enumeration of religious significance, e.g. a list of gods, divine features, metamorphoses and attributes of god; the sequence of ritual events, objects, and offerings; the chapters of stories performed at celebrations; or the order of celebrations etc. As a symbol belonged to each, and these symbols subsequently became characters, the order of characters was evidently given.

The characteristics of Székely script have been preserved in several sign systems. The largest number of graphic parallels can be found in the earliest signs of Europe, the Middle East and China.  Close equivalents of its vowel-letters and the consonant-letters that also allow syllable representation occur in Hurrian and Old-Persian cuneiform scripts.

 

Fig. 35 Ancient sign systems that can be related to Székely runic script: inscriptions on the Mas d’Azil pebbles (7-8th millennium BC), signs on the potsherds of Tordos-Vinca (4-3rd millennium BC) and Tepe Yahya (4-2nd millennium BC), Urartian hieroglyphs (2-1st millennium BC), rock drawings from ancient Khwarism (2nd millennium BC), signs on Hunnish objects (1st millennium AD)

Székely; Mas d’Azil; Tordos-Vinca; Tepe Yahya; Urartian; Khwarism; Hunnish

 

The closest relative of Székely script’s character order is the Ugaritic cuneiform system, which is of Hurrian origin. One of the prototypes, or rather parallels of Székely ligatures is the inscription in Hittite Yazilikaya rock pantheon; the other is the American Indian writing method. Its writing technology is described by the expression “wood writing,” applied to Hittite hieroglyphic script. The assumption logically follows, that a runic script must have existed at that time which had all these features. As there are no existing tally-sticks, however, it only remains a supposition.

On the other hand, it is a fact that Székely script preserved all the above features of ancient sign systems. Székely script could not inherit these features from any one writing system known today, and it is improbable that it was compiled from a dozen different systems. What we face is not a pile of rubble, but a rock mass left behind by the ages that created the writing systems - a rock that has survived thousands of years hardly a scratch. In accordance with Sebestyén Gyula’s principles quoted at the beginning of this study, Székely script can be considered the relative or rather the prototype of the first ancient scripts.

Steppe traditionalism has made survival of ancient features possible, although script may have gone through smaller alterations; its character set may have increased or changed and may  have been partly replaced.

Our predecessors likely insisted on a particular character shape only if it had religious importance. For example, the shapes of the original word and syllabic characters developed into letters, which are still used as such. Then these letters were combined into new syllabic signs because a set of symbols representing syllables is easier to learn and has all the advantages of a syllabic script. Ligature technology is very ancient (Fig. 10), and even among our earliest signs there could have already been complex symbols, such as the rune “nt” (cf. Figs. 5, 14, 29, 33). Therefore, it is not at all certain that the syllabic prototypes of the Ba and aB types of consonants developed earlier than the vowel signs. It must have varied from language to language.

The letter compounds without religious significance could easily be replaced by other signs, if changes in writing technology required it. Paper, silk, leather, etc., which was used in economically prosperous times, could have encouraged letter script without ligatures, so the syllabic signs could simply have fallen into oblivion. In blood-filled centuries, which were probably not rare, our forefathers returned to the use of tally-sticks, and to save space and time they were forced to invent new ligatures. It is due to this fact that there is little similarity between compounded syllable signs in the various “alphabets” (Fig. 18).

The “nt” of Mas d’Azil and the American Indian “jm” imply, that Székely script was a phonetic system (containing both letters and syllabic signs) as early as the end of the Ice Age.[4] Therefore, both the use of syllabic script mentioned by Thelegdi and that of letter alphabets, are thousands of years old. Though that may be a surprising conclusion for many, it does not contradict the general practice of increasing the number of characters, e.g. in Egyptian, Sumerian, Hittite or Chinese, and also resembles Chinese montage technique.

The parallels between the languages and scripts of Sumer, China, and Khwarism (Varga/1993/62, 131, 155) could never have developed without our ancestors’ writing. While Chinese sign combinations reveal a system of words and syllables, the formally differentiated signs of ancient Khwarism create the impression of a letter script. It implies that the transitory language was multi-functional; it was a hieroglyphic script with one-syllabic character names, which made both syllabic (vowel-dropping) and letter writing possible.

The “Bél atya” (Father Bél) meaning of the Hungarian word betû (letter), its linguistic and mythological connections cannot come from a Semitic or Greek source. Its relationship to a great number of languages (Portuguese fétis “amulet, religiously respected object or person,” Chuvash petü “amulet,” Chinese bit “writing, document,” Phoenician character name béth and Greek character name beta etc.) suggest the existence of one ancient source. The early appearance of the formal variants of Székely “b” (Bél, belsõ) in the same regions (Figs. 1, 35) allows the assumption that this common source was the progenitor of the Hungarian language and Székely script.

Arriving from the East, Scythians, Huns and Avars (Parthians) led a large proportion of the peoples from the Steppe to the Carpathian Basin, where Székely script survived as the heritage of the merged cultures of these peoples. All the three nations left hieroglyphic or letter script inscriptions that can be (were) deciphered with the help of Székely script and the Hungarian language. (Varga/1993/187; and Figs. 22, 25).

These inscriptions and the above-mentioned linguistic, mythological, ethnographic etc. data and relationships support the words of Hungarian chronicles that mention Hunnish-Scythian script.

However, as we could see, Székely script is much more ancient than these nations; it is the direct descendant of the first sign system of mankind. It is the heritage of gods and cultural heroes who emerged from Chaos of the Flood.

 

Fig. 36 The name of Jima, the first man, written in pictorial sign montages in the Steppe tradition

The enamel picture of Jesus on the cross-strap of the Hungarian Holy Crown (drawing by Ludvig Rezsõ);

Mongolian stone-sculpture (adapted from Kubarev, V. D.)

The enamel picture of Jesus on the band of the Hungarian Holy Crown

“jm” ligatures at Christ’s knees

According to the cell-drawings Christ is the “Big Mountain

 

Fig. 37 Old Persian cuneiform script, which is considered an independent creation in researches, bears some similarity in detail to corresponding solutions of Székely and Turkish runic script.

 



[1] The world model viewed from above is rune "f" (Föld - Earth), while the frontal view model is rune "g" (ég - sky, Heaven).

[2] One of the signs in this character set is the scroll representing the Milky Way, which is a variant of Székely rune "ak" (patak - brook) and "j" (jó, folyó -good, river). This sign occurs on Mango Capac’s belt (coming to the world from the Lake Titicaca; Ayala/1990/14), on European Megalithic objects, on relics of the Arpadian dynasty (coming to the world from a brook which burst up from Emese’s loins (Fig. 11., 36.) and on the shoulders of a Mongolian sculpture (Kubarev/1997/574).

[3] When I was writing down these thoughts I was looking for excuses. It was only later that I realised that none should find excuses for discoveries. The probability of writing-historical connections is further increased by the recently found parallels between the most ancient Hungarian and American Indian music. Ördög László, music teacher and Vavrinecz Béla, composer and folk-music expert informed me about these discoveries, that prove that the most ancient cultural centres (such as Cuzco) used a falling pentatonic scale in their musical pieces. It is closely related, sometimes equivalent with the earliest Hungarian folk-music.

[4] However, it must be emphasised that these examples are not enough to decide such an important question. It only means that this is the most likely explanation for the available poor references from a mainly writing-historical point of view.

When deciding a writing-historical question it seems rational to think in writing-historical terms. It would not be correct to ask: "What is the culture behind the writing of the Ice Age?" as this question involves an irrational preconception. It implies the preconception that writing can only exist where archaeologists have already dug out the foundations of some stone or adobe buildings, and that writing itself is not enough to prove the existence of a culture.

According to some experts (e.g. G. Hancock) the first megalithic buildings appeared in the Ice Age, but the details of this issue would exceed the limits and aims of this study.



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.


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