Open To Interpretation
Betyls
Notes: Game on...on the radio...Angels and Athletics...bottom of first, first pitch, a home run for the As...hmmph...a whimsy from yesterday, was 'betyls' of the Nabateans were picked up by the Phoenicians, and hence to the New World...I didn't have that word "betyls', picked it up this morning...and it has some synonyms, like 'cippi'...oh, a bunch of things...rather than make a figurine of a god, the ancients would see gods and goddesses in trees, streams, mountains, lightning, all kinds of things in Nature, even just a common stone, though fragments of meteors were most popular!...Arabic has the term, 'baraka' to describe how the spirit of God can imbue a Natural object...I've gone on about this way back...Animists, Pantheists, they find spirits in things, manmade and Natural...it's not so hard to understand, baseball memorabilia a kind of example...a ball, a bat, part of a record making event, becomes 'sacred', or at least worth a lot to collectors!...'rarity' is a feature...I dunno...lemesee if can I fill out the track of the Phoenicians!...top of second...Angels with runners on third and second...I'm going to have to write down on paper for reference the new Angels' names I cant spell!...Rhenepho up...W...bases loaded...and Fletcher up!...cool...batting 371 last 11 games...0-2...1-2...Fletch leads league like in fewest strike outs...along with Lastella...these two Angels' new 'Trout' and "Ohtani', until T's and O's bats wake back up...it's As 1-0...a bloop single...Angels 2-1...and there was two out...two out hitting the Angels have been worst at!...Lastella, top of the order, up...and, Lastella hits a two rbi double!...Angels 4-1...Trout up...intentional walk...Ohtani up...Ohtani behind Trout was supposed to stop Trout being pitched around...but, Othani batting like 220...infield hit?!...and, an appeal...no challenge...bases loaded...Pujols up...second time up this inning!...pop out..to bottom of third...
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The
Nabataean religion is the form of
Arab polytheism practiced in
Nabataea, an ancient Arab nation which was well settled by the third century BCE and lasted until the Roman annexation in 106 CE.
[1] The Nabateans were
polytheistic and worshipped a wide variety of local gods as well as
Baalshamin,
Isis, and Greco-Roman gods such as
Tyche and
Dionysus.
[1] They worshipped their gods at temples, high places, and betyls.
They were mostly aniconic and preferred to decorate their sacred places with geometric designs. (my underline emphasis)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nabataean_religion
unquote
quote
Baetylus (also
Baetyl,
Bethel, or
Betyl, from
Semitic bet el "house of god") is a word denoting sacred stones that were supposedly endowed with life. According to ancient sources, these objects of worship were
meteorites, which were dedicated to the gods or revered as symbols of the gods themselves.
[1] A baetyl is also mentioned in the
Bible at
Bethel in the
Book of Genesis in the story of
Jacob's Ladder.
... ... ...
In the
Phoenician mythology related by
Sanchuniathon, one of the sons of
Uranus was named
Baetylus.
[3] The worship of baetyls was widespread in the Phoenician colonies, including
Carthage, even after the adoption of
Christianity, and was denounced by
Augustine of Hippo.
In
ancient Greek religion and
mythology, the term was specially applied to the
Omphalos, the stone supposed to have been swallowed by
Cronus (who feared misfortune from his own children) in mistake for his infant son
Zeus, for whom it had been substituted by
Gaea.
[5] This stone was carefully preserved at
Delphi, anointed with oil every day and on festive occasions covered with raw wool.
[6]
In
Rome, there was the stone effigy of
Cybele, called
Mater Idaea Deum, that had been ceremoniously brought from
Pessinus in Asia Minor in 204 BC.
[3] Another conical meteorite was enshrined in the
Elagabalium to personify the Syrian deity
Elagabalus.
In some cases an attempt was made to give a more regular form to the original shapeless stone: thus
Apollo Agyieus was represented by a conical
pillar with a pointed end,
Zeus Meilichius in the form of a
pyramid. Other famous baetylic idols were those in the temples of Zeus Casius at
Seleucia Pieria, and of Zeus Teleios at
Tegea. Even in the declining years of
paganism, these idols still retained their significance, as is shown by the attacks upon them by ecclesiastical writers.
[3]
A similar practice survives today with the
Kaaba's
Black Stone, which was worshiped by pre-Islamic polytheists.
[
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baetylus
unquote
hmmph...did 'search: inca betyl'...and it turned up an old book, like 1893, that has a printed lecture...well, leme link it at least...it is too long to quote from...
quote
more than the cippus, or betyl, out of which the god was wpposed to have ...... the Incas. On the painted inscription of Citium (CIS. No. 86) barbers. (~253).
You visited this page on 5/28/19.
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The lecture I noted went on about forests/trees, streams/springs and such, and stones...the author is like Pausanaias...one sentence after another with different things...that patter...Graves patters like that too...encyclopedic log lines...each sentence could be a whole lecture/book...I could read it on my tablet, but the pdf file locks up my laptop...there are a lot of papers on this subject, but hidden behind paywalls and memberships...I find myself sent to the 19th century works for images and notes!...there was a passage about the Phoenicians I can get, maybe...this will take a bit...bbk...progress...copied text to memo on tab...can go from there to blog editor...Ohtani makes out to end top of some inning...bottom of fourth?...
quote
LECTURES
ON THE
RELIGION OF THE SEMITES
FIRST SERIES
THE FUNDAMENTAL INSTITUTIONS
BY THE LATE
W. ROBERTSON SMITH, M.A., LL.D.
PROFESSOR OF ARABIC IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
N E W EDITION
REVISED THROUGHOUT BY THE AUTHOR
LONDON
1901
... ... ...
We have seen that holiness admits of degrees, and that
within a sacred land or tract it is natural to mark off an
inner circle of intenser holiness, where all ritual restrictions
are stringently enforced, and where man feels himself to be
nearer to his god than on other parts even of holy ground.
Such a spot of intenser holiness becomes the sanctuary or
place of sacrifice, where the worshipper approaches the god
with prayers and gifts, and seeks guidance for life from
the divine oracle.
ADAM AND CHARLES BLACKLECTURE V
SANCTUARIES, NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL. HOLY WATERS,
TREES, CAVES, AND STONES
(from p165 0n...my note)
... ... ...
Where a tree was worshipped as the symbol of an
anthropomorphic god we sometimes find a transformation
legend directly connecting the life of the god with the
vegetative life of the tree. This kind of myth, in which
a god is transformed into a tree or a tree springs from the
blood of a god, plays a large part in the sacred lore of
Phrygia, where tree worship had peculiar prominence, and
is also common in Greece. The Semitic examples are not
numerous, and are neither so early nor so well attested as
to inspire confidence that they are genuine old legends
independent of Greek influence.2 The most important of
them is the myth told at Byblus in the time of Plutarch,
of the sacred erica which was worshipped in the temple
of Isis, and was said to have grown round the dead body
of Osiris. At Byblus, Isis and Osiris are really Astarte
and Adonis, so this may possibly be an original Semitic
legend of a holy tree growing from the grave of a god.3
... ... ...
1 An interesting example of the combination may here be added to those
Melcarth was worshipped at Tyre
in the form of two pillars,1 and at the great temple of
Paphos, down to Eoman times, the idol was not an
anthropomorphic image of Astarte, but a conical stone.2
These antique forms were not retained from want of
plastic skill, or because there were not well-known types
on which images of the various gods could be and often
were constructed; for we see from the second command-
ment that likenesses of things celestial terrestrial and
aquatic were objects of worship in Canaan from a very
early date. It was simply not thought necessary that the
symbol in which the divinity was present should be like
the god.
Phoenician votive cippi were often adorned with rude
figures of men, animals and the like, as may be seen in the
series of such monuments dedicated to Tanith and Baal
Hainman which are depicted in the Corpus Inscr. Sent.
These figures, which are often little better than hierogly-
phics, served, like the accompanying inscriptions, to indicate
the meaning of the cippus and the deity to which it was
devoted. An image in like manner declares its own
meaning better than a mere pillar, but the chief idol of a
great sanctuary did not require to be explained in this
way; its position showed what it was without either figure
or inscription. It is probable that among the Phoenicians
and Hebrews, as among the Arabs at the time of Mohammed,
portrait images, such as are spoken of in the second commandment, were mainly small gods for private use.1
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Angels make out in top of fifth...to bottom of fifth....the first bit is just the lecture intro...there's a lot of guessing, inspired observations!...the second bit is about Trees...for sometime sacred trees and groves...maybe my favorite subject...and the final bit has about the Phoenicians...first pitch lead off home run...Angels 4-2...the real 'bit' about that long quote, is I was able to do it!...began the blog as usual in editor with lap top, Windows 7, saved and closed it...opened the pdf with the samsung A6 tablet, scrolled to the texts, selected...done by hold down click, release, then drag one of the blue tabs to highlight, open two windows by hold click on rectangle icon on lower left bottom...click on memo...click on + to make new memo page, hold click to acquire blue tab with Paste above it...click on paste...save memo page...tap the lower left rectangle to get back to both pages...click on source...continue...memo pages have a word limit...so I broke things into four memo pages...close everything...open blog editor, hold click on the lower left rectangle...this opens two pages...but to find second page, browse icons, open memo, and there open page to transfer...hold click to get selection bar with copy on it...click copy...save page to leave...(it will request this)...tap lower left rectangle...with two pages up, click on blog screen...scroll to end of previous text...hold click to get the blue tab with PASTE...paste...rinse!...Lastella up...did Fletch get on?...yep, but stranded...to bottom of sixth...lead off hit...
quote
"you can also watch" copy paste done...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFxzq_YwEwU
unquote
now, if the Phoenicians were into fetishes, betyls, and geometric representations...well, wait...their cippi...
quote
The cippi of Malta are to Phoenician script what the
Rosetta Stone is to Egyptian
hieroglyphics, the key to finally decoding the world’s first written script.
The cippi (plural of cippus) of Malta are a pair of ornamental pillars with engravings dedicated to the god
Melqart, the most important Phoenician god...
https://culturemalta.org/the-cippi-of-malta/
unquote
a lot of pages going on about cippi and Phoenicians...their script is the beginning of our script...Trout up...fly out...Ohtani up...As tied things up...Angels 4-4...Ohtani with just the bloop hit earlier...
quote
https://phoenicia.org/pagan.html
unquote
K...Pujols up...pic is typical of how Phoenicians lifted from Egyptian things...and looks a lot like the pic I posted back a couple posts...first depiction of the Ureaus/cobra on forehead...ground out...to bottom of seventh...it's the mace held high ready to strike captive pose...but I dunno what is in the figure's hands...anyway...for sometime more on interveaning steps in the whimsy of the Phoenicians making it to the New World...at Machu Pichu the Temple of the Sun wraps around in step fret curl fashion an outcrop of stone where a floor should be...oh!...here I found pic that show how the sunlight falls on it...
quote
https://www.peru-explorer.com/machu_picchu/the_temple_of_the_sun.htm
unquote
As with one out double...the Temple of the Sun in Cuzco has a curl too, but no telling what was once its floor, though said the windows there align to the sun on special days...and another Town has a Sun Temple...for some time to sort this out!...but right beside the one in Mach Pichu is this:
quote
[PDF] Scholars Portal PDF Export
unquote
an artsy mood pic of what I was looking for...many pics on web, just being illusive...there's a cavern grotto area with the stone work intertwined near the Temple to the Sun...in fact, there are a lot of natural stone features that are melded with the famous polygon stonework...which sometimes is just square/rectangle blocks...the archaeology of the Old World uses different terms than the archaeology of the New, I'm finding...there's some word I haven't happened on yet for Inca baetyls...Calhoun up...I've come to wonder if the famous 'nobs' on stone work are 'baetyls'...day game tomorrow in Oakland...I stay up late, and sleep in to game time!...
quote
She did not answer, and he put out his hand and touched her head, but found she had turned to stone.
The two brothers lashed their horses and came back to where the camp had stopped. They told their story, but were not believed.
"My first wife has killed herself and my brothers will not tell me," said the husband.
However, the whole village broke camp and came back to the place where they had left the Arikara woman. Sure enough, she sat motionless, a block of stone.
The camp was very excited by this unusual thing that happened and so they chose a horse, made a new travois and placed the stone on it. The horse and travois were beautifully painted and decorated, as the stone was thought to be Waka'n (holy or sacred). When the band stopped to make a new village site, the stone was given a place of honor in the center of the camp.
Whenever the camp moved the stone and travois were taken along. The stone woman was carried like this for years, and finally brought to Standing Rock Agency, and now rests upon a brick pedestal in front of the agency office at Fort Yates, North Dakota.
hmmph...
quote
Wakan, meaning "powerful" or "sacred" in the Lakota language
wiki
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and all this loops back to the three sacred stones of the Inca, and the Mayans...those steps for sometime!...two out bottom of eighth...Angels 4-4...slow game...
quote
In his 1871 book Ancient America, John Denison Baldwin repeats some of the arguments given for Phoenician visits to America, but concludes that:
... if it were true that the civilization found in Mexico and Central America came from people of the Phoenician race, it would be true also that they built in America as they never built any where else, that they established a language here radically unlike their own, and that they used a style of writing totally different from that which they carried into every other region occupied by their colonies. All the forms of alphabetical writing used at present in Europe and Southwestern Asia came directly or indirectly from that anciently invented by the race to which the Phoenicians belonged, and they have traces of a common relationship which can easily be detected. Now the writing of the inscriptions at Palenque, Copan, and elsewhere in the ruins has no more relatedness to the Phoenician than to the Chinese writing. It has not a single characteristic that can be called Phoenician any more than the language of the inscriptions or the style of architecture with which it is associated; therefore we can not reasonably suppose this American civilization was originated by people of the Phoenician race ...[
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_Phoenician_discovery_of_the_Americas
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the 19th century had takes!...top of ninth...let's go Angels...one out...Fletcher up...time to feed Maya, my dog...fly out...Lastella up...hit...Trout up...W...Ohtani up...wild pitch...runners second and third...liner drops in!...two runs score...Angels 6-4...'all six runs have come with two outs'...Pujols up...grounds out...to bottom of ninth...Baldwin wrote a book...Pre-Historic Nations And Their Probable Relation To A Still Older Civilization Of The Ethiopians And Cushites
...hmmph...been meaning to visit the Kushites!... tomorrowmorrow...fc...one out...runner on first...runner gifted second...that little tower is suspect..line out to Trout, and game over...Angels 6-4...put a halo over this one!!!...
:)
DavidDavid
