Lascaux 17 – Hebrews, water finders; also: wise Solomon, and Ôsignature elementsŐ in the early alphabets of Asia Minor  /  Š 2018 by Franz Gnaedinger

 

 

Hebrews, water finders  (part 1/12)

 

The SAP BIR apiru Hebrews wandered mainly between BIR SAP Beersheba 'Seven Wells' and Har Karkom in the Sinai and the eastern part of the Nile Delta. SAP means everywhere (in space), here, south and north of me, east and west of me, under and above me, in all seven places, wherefrom words for seven in many languages including Hebrew and Arabic. BIR means fur, Greek byrsa 'hide, fur, leather', and named a well as fur place: where fur bags or leather bags or goat hides were filled with water. SAP BIR apiru Hebrews named people who found everywhere SAP water and dug wells that became fur BIR places – Beer Bir.

 

Their leaders were Moses and Aaron figures, pulled together to one single Moses and one single Aaron in the dramatic report of the Bible. MmOS SAI Moses was the offspring MmOS of life SAI, namely, of the life giving God, while Aaron worshipped God using the ancient name of AAR RAA NOS, he of air AAR and light RAA with a mind NOS of his own, sky god of the Gšbekli Tepe. This god was implored for rain. Prayers for rain and the rising smoke of sacrificial fires imploring rain were symbolized by snakes heading upward, and falling rain by snakes heading downward, snakes being by far the most frequent symbol on Gšbekli Tepe pillars. The rods of Moses and Aaron turned into serpents, meaning they found water. When they appeared before Pharaoh, Aaron's rod turned into a serpent, and so did the rods of the Egyptian magicians, however, the serpent of Aaron swallowed theirs, meaning Aaron and his apiru surpassed even the Egyptian water engineers.

 

Beersheba was the center of a mysterious Chalcolithic people, their legacy on a par with Predynastic Egyptian art. Har Karkom in the Sinai, a modest mountain ridge, was a religious center between 4300 and 2000 BC, with more than 120 cult places, and 40,000 (forty thousand) rock engravings, among them a staff and a winding snake, a radiating eye, and a grid of ten fields evoking the pair of tables with the ten commandments of Moses. Living in the Sinai required the ability of finding water everywhere, at which the SAP BIR apiru Hebrews excelled.

 

MmOS SAI Moses, offspring MmOS of God who gives life SAI, goes along with Egyptian mesi 'be born', Ahmose = given life and placed on Earth by the moon god Ah, Thutmosis = given life and placed on Earth by the moon god Thoth.

 

 

 

Hebrews, water finders  (part 2/12)

 

Emmanuel Anati "claims to have documented 1,300 archaeological sites at Har Karkom, including 40,000 (?) rock engravings and more than 120 rock cult sites, such as small temples, standing stones (masseboth), tumuli, open-air altars, stone circles, and other types of shrines. Most of the rock engravings, called petroglyphs, and rock cult sites are clustered at the base of Har Karkom" (Hershel Shanks, Biblical Archaeology Review, March / April 2014). Anati equates the Har Karkom with Mt. Sinai in the Bible. The crescent-shaped horns of the many ibices among the rock engravings may indicate the moon god Sin (Magdalenian GEN for the three days of the young moon). Three of the Bronze Age petroglyphs evoke the Exodus, and make Anati date back this Biblical event by centuries if not millennia, to a time long before the established date of 1200 BC.

 

Are there more connections between the Bronze Age at Har Karkom and the Bible? If so, Moses and Aaron would have been collective names for a series of leaders born at different times. Moses as a baby was found in an ark of bulrushes among the flags by a river's brink – a water child, so to say, water being the element and symbol of life: offspring MmOS life SAI, together MmOS SAI Moses. This may be an older layer of the Moses tale, while the Moses of 1200 BC led his people in a critical period, when a climate change (proven for Southern Turkey) with droughts and occasional torrents and a temperature drop ruined agriculture and caused mass migrations along the Mediterranean, reaching Egypt as 'Invasion the Sea Peoples', in the Bible symbolized by the plagues that befell Egypt.

 

Also David was a collective name, DA PAD dvd David, away from DA activity of feet PAD - the hill tribes of Judah delivered from the paw of the Egyptian lion, delivered from the paw of the Hittite bear, and delivered from the 'paw' of the Philistine giant Goliath. And SAL MAN Solomon, the son of David, was another collective name, overseer of those who work in the watery ground of a valley SAL with their right hand MAN – water workers again, using their skills also in mining.

 

To say it bluntly: the Bible turned a long and winding history into a Hollywood story. Only much better than a Hollywood production, a tale full of information wrapped up in symbols the unfolding of which is a hermeneutic task.

 

 

 

Hebrews, water finders  (part 3/12)

 

A phantastic book: Emmanuel Anati, Hara Karkom, La montagna di Dio 'God's Mountain', Jaca Milano 1981/86. A rock on a path up to the ridge has the shape of a steep mountain, below a pair of adorants with raised arms, maybe the generic Moses and Aaron figures, and far above them, at the narrow top of the rock, an 'abstract sign' which appears to me as a tangle of snakes that look downward, snakes heading downward symbolizing rain in the Gšbekli Tepe iconography, here maybe even a thunderstorm with flashes. The snakes form a golden aureole between them (natural color of the pricked stone; all the local petroglyphs are yellow-orange, in a beautiful contrast to the dark surface of the rock). The 'aureole' may be the lining of a cloud that hides AAR RAA NOS of the Gšbekli Tepe, the ancient sky god of air AAR and light RAA with a mind NOS of his own, implored for rain that fills river beds and water holes. Under the left man is a sign in the shape of a bowl, maybe a well or a fur bag. The same sign indicates the fur giver BIR GID on a Gšbekli Tepe pillar. BIR meaning fur named wells as fur places Bir Bor Beer, wells where fur bags were filled with water, numerous in the Negev and Sinai. AAR RAA NOS cared for his people who commuted between Harran or Haran forty kilometers south of the Gšbekli Tepe

 

     AAR RAA NOS   AR RA N   Harran Haran

 

and BIR SAP Beersheba and the Har Karkom in the Negev/Sinai and Goshen in the Nile Delta. He appeared to Jacob who was on his was from Beersheba to Haran, addressing him from the top of a heavenly ladder, AS RAA ) or AS RAA L Israel, up above AS the Lord in an aureole of light RAA has the say ) or L ..., and later on, declaring himself to be the one and only God of the Israelites, he spoke to Moses on the Har Karkom, identified with the Biblical Mt. Sinai by Emmanuel Anati.

 

 

 

Hebrews, water finders  (part 4/12)

 

When the children of Israel entered the desert of Zin and found no water, (Book of Numbers 20) they gathered against Moses and Aaron. The Lord in his glory (an aureole) appeared before Moses and Aaron and told Moses how he can get water out of a rock. Moses did as he was commanded, smote the rock twice with his rod, and "water came out abundantly" for all the people and all the animals ... KOD DhAG BIR NIA Kodesh-Barnea – let us erect the tent KOD of the able one DhAG here, by the well, where we can fill our fur bags with water, fur BIR, it is a good place, NIA (exclamation of joy when a good place for a camp had been found, from the permutation group of NAI for finding a new camp). KOD DhAG accounts for Hebrew qodesh kodash 'holy' Arabic mu'kaddas 'holy' Turkish mukaddes 'holy' Persian mogaddas 'holy', with a Christian cognate in Italian casa di Dio 'house of God' for a church.

 

The Lord spoke to Moses on the Har Karkom, better known as Mount Sinai. Then the Israelites wandered some thirty kilometers westward to the base of Mount Seir, abode of Jahwe – rider of clouds, the Lord, the able one who had the say – and then between twenty and thirty kilometers northward into the desert of Zin, where Moses with the help from above did a miracle, commemorated by the name of Kadesh Barnea in the above etymology.

 

DhAG meaning able is part of the double formula naming the supreme sky and weather god of the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age and Iron Age

 

     ShA PAD TYR AS CA

     DhAG PAD TYR AS CA

 

     The ruler ShA goes ahead (activity of feet) PAD

     and overcomes in the double sense of rule and give TYR

     up above AS in the sky CA / The able one DhAG ... (repetition)

 

ShA PAD TYR Jupitter Jupiter Jovis Giove, DhAG PAD TYR Dis pater, byname of Jupiter. DhAG deus 'god'. TYR Sseyr Sseus Zeus, DhAG Dios, genitive of Zeus, DhAG theos 'god'. ShA PAD Shiva and the TYR CA Durga emanation of his wife. DhAG Dagan(u), father of Baal, close in rank to Ilu El who had the say ) or L. A short version of the above formula named Jahwe, rider of clouds from Mount Seir (close to the emphatic Middle Helladic form of TYR for Zeus, Sseyr)

 

     ShA ... CA   the ruler in the sky

     DhAG ... CA   the able one in the sky

 

Did Moses perform a miracle in the desert of Zin? Yes, by making the best use of his God-given ability of a SAP BIR apiru, finding water everywhere.

 

 

 

Hebrews, water finders  (5/12)

 

KOD DhAG accounts for Hebrew qodash modern kadosh 'holy' Arabic mu'qaddas 'sanctified, holy, consecrated' Turkish mukaddas 'holy (of places)' Persian mogaddes 'holy, sanctified, sanctuaries' and has a parallel in Italian casa di Dio 'house of God' for a church. Further derivatives of KOD are for example Hebrew xasa (chasa) 'find protection' and 'setŽr 'hidden place, secret'. Hidden and well protected in the tent of the Lord at Kadesh-Barnea were the ark of the covenant and the mercy seat on it (Exodus 37). The ark of the covenant was a wooden chest 2.5 cubits long and 1.5 cubits broad and high. The mercy seat placed on the chest was again 2.5 cubits long and 1.5 cubits broad. It was decorated by a pair of cherubim, their wings covering the entire length of the mercy seat while touching each other in the middle, so each pair of wings covered 1.25 cubits. The royal cubit of the New Kingdom of Egypt measured 52.5 centimeters or 28 fingerbreadths of 1.875 centimeters each, 7 of them measure 13.125 centimeters and are the unit in the following table

 

     length of mercy seat 2.5 cubits or 10 units

     wings of one cherub 1.25 cubits or 5 units

     breadth of mercy seat 1.5 cubits or 6 units

     wings of other cherub 1.25 cubits or 5 units

 

The Old Phoenician letters had also numerical values, or the other way round, numerals can mean letters. 10 5 6 5 yield jhwh for Jahwe, the famous tetragram.

 

We may then assume that the mercy seat invited Jahwe to come down from the heavens and take place in the holy of holies and have mercy on his people, for example by providing rain. He appeared hidden in a cloud, source of rain, the lining an aureole, the Biblical Lord in his glory.

 

Concordance between the letters of the tetragram jhwh in early consonantic alphabets and the numbers 10 5 6 5 and the ShA.CA DhAG.CA formula of Jahwe (there may be more versions than given here, as the early Semantic scripts vary):

 

Jod -- Egyptian 'i' an arm or hand or two fingers, Old Phoenician 'j' a raised arm and hand of two fingers in the act of blessing or commanding, numerical value 10 (corresponding to the ten commandments on the pair of tables kept in the ark of the covenant), in the Sinai script a raised arm and/or a hand of three fingers, again the double aspect of blessing and commanding, ruler ShA (heavenly commander)

 

He -- Old Phoenician 'h' a wing, numerical value 5, Old North Semitic a ladder (Jacob's ladder), in the Sinai script the underside of a cloud, rain falling out of it, symbolized by a snake heading downward, and flowing off as a river, sky CA (where the rain comes from, realm of the cherubim, abode of the Lord)

 

Waw -- Egyptian 'f' a horizontal snake, Old Phoenician 'w' the combination of a staff and a snake, numerical value 6, in the Sinai script a roundish form evoking the lining of a cloud, aureole of the Lord in his glory, able DhAG (desert snakes can smell water from afar, the heavenly Lord as the able one enabled Aaron and Moses, turned their rods into snakes = made them find water, a most precious ability in an arid zone)

 

Some scholars argue that the Sinai script is older than the Phoenician one. So it is either a prototype or then an adaption to life in the Negev and Sinai. In both cases the letters of the tetragram seem to have been the core of the consonantic alphabet and may help establish the taxonomy of the early Semitic scripts. For example Arabic has 10 jod 5 ha 6 waw while the form of the letters differ greatly from Phoenician and the Sinai script.

 

 

 

Hebrews, water finders  (6/12)

 

10 5 6 5 Hebrew jod he waw he Arabic jod ha waw ha jhwh Jahwe has the say ) or L, Ilu El, in a longer form )OG or LOG, logos (in the beginning was logos, and logos was with God, and logos was God) Elohim Allah, while TON for making oneself heard might be present in Adonai.

 

Greek logos 'word' has a wide range of meanings: speech, presentation, explanation, tale, talk; description, book, fable, prose; rumor, pretext; manner of speaking; permission to speak; ability of speaking; eloquence; (have a) talk, conversation, negotiation, discussion, deliberation, proposition; word, expression; utterance, claim, saying, theorem, definition; oracle; calculation; expectation; relation, proposition; intellectual capacity, reason; Logos (= Jesus Christ).

 

Religion can go along with democracy living in free discussions, with reason and science. Hydrology was an early science at which the SAP BIR apiru Hebrews excelled. The Bible is full of not yet recognized water symbols, beginning with the snake in paradise that symbolizes the huge amount of water needed for irrigating cultivated date palms, and the consequences thereof. Israel makes the best use of the available water, while 70 (seventy) percent of the water in vast Jordania evaporates unused.

 

 

 

Hebrews, water finders  (7/12)

 

Mallory and Adams 2006 give *kwen(to)- 'holy' as root of Lithuanian sventas (shventas) 'holy' Old Church Slavonic svetu 'holy' Avestan spenta ('e' a schwa) 'holy' and say that *kwen(to)- probably has a verbal origin in  *keu(h1)- 'swell' hence 'swollen (with some sort of sacred force)'. Apparently the shift k – kw – sv poses no problem, so there is another possibility, KOD DhAG svetu Czech svatý 'holy'

 

     KOD DhAG   KweD D A   Kwen to   sventu svatý

 

The Divine Hind of Magdalenian times called moon bulls into life. Her main sanctuary was Altamira. Moreover she was honored with arbors. Her human emanation was the Divine Hind Woman, her constellation Orion, and her emblematic animals were a pair of antithetic ibices or mountain goats (the latter an insight of Marie E.P. Kšnig) when Orion reaches the highest position in the sky.

 

A bronze disc (diameter some ten centimeters) from Luristan in western Iran shows the Orion goddess, evoked by a big framing hourglass of six stars, giving birth to the moon god emerging with a round head from her vulva. A similar depiction is among the petroglyphs around the Har Karkom, the round head of the moon child a 'smiley'. The woman on the plaque from Luristan wears a hat of fir twigs indicating a hut or an arbor made from fir branches. The name of the arbor could have been MUC KOD DhAG

 

     moon bull man MUC

     born in the hut KOD

     of the able one DhAG

     by the Orion goddess

 

MUC for bull named here the moon bull as bull man and moon god. KOD for hut has a parallel in Egyptian hat naming a heavenly house. And DhAG is here the mighty Orion goddess. MUC for the moon bull man would have survived in Persian mah 'moon'. The entire compound may have been adopted in Mesopotamia where it became Arabic mu'qaddas 'holy' and from where it returned to the Iran in Persian mogaddas 'holy'.

 

GEN for the three days of the young moon bull and inverse NEG for the three days of the old moon bull enclose the death of the latter and birth of the former between them. NEG is possibly present in Negev, and GEN in Sin Zin Sinai, naming the moon god Sin, worshipped from Haran to the Sinai, represented by a crescent, hence the young moon. GEN for the three days or nights of the young moon suggests the golden calf as moon god Sin, celebrated with "lusting" and feasting and full "pots of flesh" (Numbers 11) refused as idolatry by the worshippers of Jahwe who saw their God in a cloud, source of rain, his glory the lining of a cloud, so they dropped MUC mu from their compound, keeping just KOD DhAG qodash 'holy'.

 

 

 

Hebrews, water finders  (8/12)

 

In 1960 Yigael Yadin or his team discovered a bowl in the citadel of Hazor bearing twice the inscription qadosh 'holy', once on the side, and once on top of the rim, in a peculiar way: the consonants 'q' and 'd' and 'sh' mark the corners of an imaginary triangle (not quite equilateral but close) inscribed in the circle of the rim. If you follow the circle in clockwise direction you get q d sh q d sh q d sh ... qodesh qodesh qodesh ... holy holy holy ...

 

Also these letters have numerical values, q = 100, d = 4, sh = 300. If you read them counterclockwise you get q sh d or 100 300 4, and by inserting mathematical operators instead of vowels you can turn the numbers into an endless calculation: 100 plus 300 equals 400 divided by 4 equals 100 plus 300 equals 400 divided by 4 equals 100 plus 300 equals 400 divided by 4 equals 100 ... This endless calculation might symbolize the eternal circulation of water, sine qua non of life, swelling and subsiding and swelling again, and could have been a prayer: may the heavenly Lord read the inscription from above and make water flow eternally ...

 

Hazor in 950 BC belonged to the Solomonic era. The 'molten sea' on the Temple Mount of Jerusalem could have commemorated the miracle of Kadesh-Barnea, so the same letters/numbers could have been incised on the rim of that holy fountain, and the bowl of Hazor, placed in the innermost sanctuary of the citadel, filled with water, might have reminded of the same miracle in the desert of Zin.

 

Early symbols are easily overlooked because of their simplicity. While utmost simplicity in a scientific result is a hallmark of genius, for example in a mathematical or physical formula.

 

 

 

Hebrews, water finders  (9/12)

 

The endless calculation derived from the qodesh formula of the Hazor bowl may appear trivial but is actually the solution to a mathematical problem involving the limit of an infinite series. Begin with any number, add 300, divide the sum by 4, add 300, divide the sum by 4, and so on. The division will approach 100, whether you begin with one or a million.

 

How come? The initial number divided by 4x4x4x4... disappears, while 300 multiplied by '4 '4x4 '4x4x4 '4x4x4x4 ... or 1/4 + 1/16 + 1/64 + 1/256 ... approximates 100, as you can glean from the 'stairway' development of that series

 

     '3 = '3

     '3 = '4 '12

     '3 = '4 '16 '48

     '3 = '4 '16 '64 '192

     '3 = '4 '16 '64 '256 '768

 

     '3 = '4 '4x4 '4x4x4 '4x4x4x4 '4x4x4x4x4 ...

 

     300 times '4 '4x4 '4x4x4 ... or '3 equals 100

 

Solomonic wisdom included mathematical knowledge on an advanced level.

 

The water basin called 'molten sea' on the Temple Mount of Jerusalem had a diameter of 10 cubits and a circumference of 30 cubits, yielding 30/10 or 3 for pi. Imagine a 'black' cubit of 21 units for the diameter and a 'red' cubit of 22 units for the circumference (rc). Now you get 660/210 = 22/7 for pi. Much better.

 

Combine the 'black' cubit and 'red' cubit (colors chosen for the inks in the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus) and you can establish a series of geometrical formulae based on fine approximate values (22/7 for pi, 99/70 and 140/99 for the square root of 2, 49/40 and 60/49 for sqrt3/sqrt2)

 

     diameter of a circle 1 bc

     circumference 3 rc

 

     diameter of a circle 2 bc

     area 3 bc rc

 

     diameter of a sphere 1 bc

     surface 3 bc rc

 

     diameter of a sphere 2 bc

     volume 4 bc bc rc

 

     radius of a circle 1 bc

     side of inscribed hexagon 1 bc

     periphery hexagon 6 bc

     circumference circle 6 rc

 

     side of a square 20 bc

     diagonal 27 rc

 

     edge of a cube 27 rc

     diagonal face 40 bc

     diagonal volume 49 bc

 

The qodesh formula encoded on the rim of the Hazor bowl can be visualized by a circle of the diameter 54 rc and the inscribed equilateral triangle of the side 49 bc, while the circle inscribed in the triangle has a diameter of 27 rc, radius of the qodesh circle.

 

Now the qodesh circle leads to the 'molten sea' via a sequence of inscribed squares and circles, diameters and sides 54 rc, 40 bc, 27 rc, 20 bc, 13.5 rc and finally 10 bc, diameter of the 'molten sea'.

 

Picture the circles around the 'molten sea', spreading like a wave gaining space, diameters 10 bc, 13.5 rc, 20 bc, 27 rc, 40 bc, 54 rc - from the water basin to the qodesh circle, both commemorating the miracle of the well at Kadesh-Barnea in the desert of Zin.

 

The circles might have been round, flat and somewhat irregular steps leading up to the fountain on the apex of the Temple Mount, symbolizing Mount Hor, and water spilling over from the well ...

 

 

 

Hebrews, water finders  (10/12)

 

The endless calculation derived from the rim of the Hazor bowl – 100 plus 300 divided by 4 equals 100 plus 300 divided by 4 equals 100 ... has a visual equivalent in the qodesh circle, in the inscribed equilateral triangle, and in the smaller circle inscribed in the triangle.

 

Diameter of the qodesh circle 54 rc, side of the inscribed equilateral triangle 49 bc, diameter of the smaller circle inscribed in this triangle 27 rc, area qodesh circle to area small circle to area ring 4 : 1 : 3. Let one unit of area 'a' be 6 bc rc (also the area of the circle around the square 2 by 2 bc) and use a pi-value very slightly better than 22/7. Now the area of the small circle is 100 a, the area of the ring 300 a, and the area of the big circle divided by 4 equals 100 a. Begin with the area of the small circle, add the area of the ring, and then divide their sum, the area of the qodesh circle by 4, and you are back with the area of the small circle 100.

 

The shift from the small circle to the big circle and back to the small circle encoded in the qodesh formula may symbolize the swelling and subsiding of water. Joseph in Egypt understood Pharaoh's dream: the seven fat cows followed by seven meagre ones are a period of abundance followed by a famine, so he took precautions and saved the people from starving.

 

We can pray, or we can use our God-given intelligence, and sometimes praying can help us find a well in a parched corner of the mind.

 

Early mathematics, underestimated, reveals the formula 'simple yet clever', while early symbolism followed the more general formula 'simple yet complex'. The three aspects of simple and clever and complex come together in the qodesh rim of the Hazor bowl and in the 'molten sea' on the Temple Mount of Jerusalem.

 

 

 

Hebrews, water finders  (11/12)

 

A realistic version of the 'molten sea' made by Solomon would have been a cylindrical stone basin decorated with brass reliefs, inner diameter 10 (black) cubits, depth 5 (red) cubits, capacity 2,000 baths. A Hebrew bat was 22 liters. If a Solomonic bath had been short of 20 liters, we get simple numbers for the pair of complementary cubits in relation to the royal cubit of the New Kingdom of Egypt measuring 52.5 centimeters

 

     black cubit = 7/8 of the royal cubit or 45.9375 cm (bc)

     red cubit = 11/12 of the royal cubit or 48.125 cm (rc)

     unit = 1/24 of the royal cubit or 2.1875 cm

     bc = 21 units, alternative subdivision 6 parts

     rc = 22 units, alternative subdivision 8 parts

 

'Molten sea'

 

     inner diameter 10 bc, depth 5 rc, capacity 375 bc rc rc

     or 200 chomer = 400 letek = 2,000 baths or bat

     = 6,000 sea = 12,000 hin = 36,000 qab = 144,000 log

     (mistake sixteen liters on nearly forty-thousand liters)

 

The log was a goblet and served as unit in the series of measures of volume and capacity: 1/6 bc by 1/8 rc by 1/8 rc

 

     chomer 'barrel' 720 log

     letek 360 log

     epha/bat 72 log

     sea '(big) jug' 24 log

     hin '(smaller) jug' 12 log

     qab 4 log

     log 'goblet' (0.2770624 liters)

 

While the Egyptians used an elaborate number system, the Solomonic method worked with the numbers provided by the Old Phoenician alphabet (which might have grown out of the Sinai script), for example

 

     product mss = 40 by 60 by 60 = 144,000

 

     bc/w by rc/ch by rc/ch = bc/6 by rc/8 by rc/8 = 1 log

 

A round bat(h) can be given as a cylinder of the inner diameter 1/2 bc and inner height 1 rc. A cylinder of the inner diameter 1 bc and inner height 1 rc has a capacity of a quadruple bat(h).

 

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An exercise for illustration.  Transform the 'molten sea' – diameter 10 bc, depth 5 rc, capacity 2,000 baths – into a rectangular cistern and basin.

 

If the diameter of a circle measures 2 bc, the area 3 bc rc. If the diameter measures 10 bc, the area is bigger by a factor of 5 times 5, hence 75 bc rc. Multiply this by the depth 5 rc and you get a capacity of 375 bc rc rc which can be factorized as follows

 

     15 bc  by  5 rc  by  5 rc

 

So the opening of the cistern measures 5 rc by 5 rc, the depth 15 bc, and the capacity 2,000 baths.

 

2,000 baths are 144,000 log, 40 by 60 by 60 log, one log being 1/6 bc by 1/8 rc by 1/8 rc, yielding

 

     40/6 bc  by  60/8 rc  by  60/8 rc

 

and then, by switching two divisors

 

     40/8 bc  by  60/6 rc  by  60/8 rc

 

     5 bc  by  10 rc  by  7 1/2 rc

 

The basin measures 7 1/2 rc by 10 rc, diagonal 12 1/2 rc, depth 5 bc, capacity 2,000 baths.

 

Once you are acquainted with the method you can easily transform volumes and capacities, shifting between round and rectangular shapes without caring about the difficult number of the circle. A good approximate value of this number, and of the square roots of 2 and 3, are encoded in the basic formulae.

 

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The Solomonic method might have been developed for the religious building program on the Temple Mount of Jerusalem.

 

Later on the red cubit was abandoned, and the black cubit of 45.9375 cm replaced by the little Egyptian cubit of 45 cm, 6 palms of 7.5 cm. The palm allowed new definitions of the above measures: log 2/3 cubit palm or 2/3 ppp, qab 8/3 ppp, hin 8 ppp, sea 16 ppp, bat 48 ppp or 20.25 liters, letek 240 ppp, chomer 480 ppp. (These can't have been the original definitions, because the 'molten sea' of diameter 10 and depth 5 cubits had now a capacity of 1,767 bat, way less than the required 2,000 bat. And again later the above measures were increased by a linear factor of about 36/35.)

 

In the story telling of the Bible: Solomon turned to the ways of Egypt. However, not completely. The ingenuous method of the complementary cubits left traces from which it can be regained. First of all the seemingly poor pi-value suggested by the 'molten sea' as described in the Bible, and then a 'signature element' in the consonantic alphabet of Asia Minor.

 

 

 

Hebrews, water finders  (12/12)

 

Hold a precious paper against the light and you may see a watermark. Another mark that might be called 'signature element' is present in several early scripts and alphabets.

 

* Hebrew, Phoenician, Arabic

 

tetragram jhwh 10 5 6 5 encoded in the 'mercy seat', and the qodesh formula connected with the 'molten sea', expanding the Solomonic method of combined cubits, 21 and 22 units long respectively, providing a date for the remarkably stable and widespread correspondence of consonants and numbers in Asia Minor: well established already in 950 BC (qodesh bowl from Hazor)

 

* Ionic alphabet

 

from alpha to omega, 24 letters representing the summer solstice from sunrise to sunrise on Samos and at Milet, a flat horizon provided: Alpha the hour from 4 to 5 o'clock in our time concept, given as head of a bull or rather as head of the golden calf, Baal as the morning sun (later identified with the supreme sky and weather god Zeus); Thaeta, hour from 11 to 12 o'clock, the sun reaching its highest position in the year, given as a ring cross for Th, initial letter of theos 'god'; Pi for the hour between 19 and 20 o'clock, the shape reminding of a gate, here the western gate passed by the sun god in the evening, disappearing below the horizon, peirar 'end, margin, border, exit' pera 'beyond', entering the Underworld; Ypsilon the hour from 23 to 24 o'clock, hypo 'below' hypnos 'sleep'; and Omega the hour from 3 to 4 o'clock, sunrise on the next morning, the sign borrowed from an Egyptian standard showing the sun on the horizon

 

* Hieroglyphic Minoan, Linear A, Linear B

 

signature element Mi Nu The, from MUC NOS SAI, bull MUC mind NOS life SAI, the bull MUC or Mi given as head of a bull for the moon bull, and for Baal in the guise of the golden calf, rising as morning sun from the tree of life; mind NOS or nu (Greek nous) given as visual pun of a bull leaper on his feet hands feet, emblem of a Minoan astronomer calculating the movements of the moon and sun and planets (yes, a piece of Minoan humor), and life SAI or The given as an abstract version of the tree of life

 

     MUC NOS SAI   Mi Nu The   Minos

     MUC NOS SAI   C NOS SAI   Knossos

 

the legend of the Minotaur encoding a lunisolar calendar, while Ariadne's thread had been number sequences, for example this one relating lunations and years (l/y)

 

     37/3  99/8  136/11  235/19  371/30

 

* Phaistos Disc, deciphered by Derk Ohlenroth

 

a peculiar alphabet of 46 tiny pictures, among them six alphas and other multiples, from around 1650 BC, designed for representing Elaia's grove at Phigalia and Middle Helladic Tiryns in word and image, signature element a rosette of eight petals, windrose and lunisolar calendar (a long month 45 days, five Homeric weeks of nine days, a year eight months plus 5 and occasionally 6 more days indicated by the tiny circle in the center, while 21 continuous periods of 45 days are 945 days and correspond to 32 lunations or synodic months, mistake less than one minute per lunation, or half a day in a lifetime), phonetic value emphatic Ss, emblem of the supreme sky and weather god Sseyr Sseus Zeus (and of Poseidon in the guise of a stallion with Demeter-Elaia in the guise of a mare, parents of Nyx, the mighty goddess of the Night, alter ego of the Earth goddess Gaia)

 

What we may call 'signature element' are then supreme deities honored by an early script and the epochal invention of the alphabet.

 

 

 

Hebrews, water finders  (first postscript – Hazor bowl inscriptions, read by a goy with a dictionary)

 

Qoph = 100 and Daleth = 4 and Shin = 300 on the rim of the Hazor bowl from around 850 BC mark the corners of an equilateral triangle. When read in clockwise direction they yield Q-D-Sh qodesh 'holy', and when read in counter-clockwise direction they become numbers in a never ending cycle – 100 300 4 100 300 4 100 300 4 100 ...

 

     100 plus 300 (equals 400)

     (400) divided by 4 equals 100

     100 plus 300 (equals 400)

     (400) divided by 4 equals 100

     100 plus 300 (equals 400)

     (400) divided by 4 equals 100

 

This looks trivial, but isn't. Begin with any number, say 50 or 1 or a million, and the algorithm will approximate 100. (Picture a circle of the area 400, inscribe an equilateral triangle, inscribe a circle in the triangle, and its area is 100, one fourth of the big circle, and the one of the ring 300 units of area. The equilateral triangle and the inscribed and circumscribed circles belong to the Solomonic method of combined cubits, one cubit measuring 21 and the other 22 units of length, a method providing simple formulae for several geometric problems, and a system of volumes and capacities that can easily be handled.)

 

Now for the lateral inscription on a shard from the broken bowl

 

                                                                       Ssade(?) Mem

 

  Shin Daleth Qoph (dot) Chet He Jod Waw(?)

 

The upper letters are small, the lower ones bigger. The Waw at the beginning of the lower line appears on the margin of the shard, only the lower part of the oblique stroke visible. If it is a Waw it may be the letter which turns the past into the future, and allows this possible reading

 

     (small) Ssade Mem – masa' '(Biblical) vision'

 

     Waw – in the future as in the past

     Jod – Ja, Jahwe

     He Chet – hachŽ  superlative

     Qoph Daleth Shin – qodesh 'holy'

       invoking the miracle of the well at Kadesh

 

The lateral inscription may indicate the use of the Hazor bowl in a ceremony of celebrating the miracle of the well at Kadesh in the desert of Zin. A priest may fill the bowl with water, then raise it for all to see, and then evoke a vision (masa') of the Israelites in the desert, and the miracle of the well at Kadesh --- as long as the believers in the most holy Lord remain faithful and abide by his laws, the Lord most holy (Ja hachŽ qodesh) will repeat the miracle of the well and make water return forever (initial Waw), it will subside and return and subside and return, never subside completely, always return ...

 

The bowl of Hazor would then have had the same function as the 'molten sea' on the Temple Mount of Jerusalem (diameter of the basin 10 shorter cubits or 210 units, circumference 30 longer cubits or 660 units, yielding 660/210 or 22/7 for pi).

 

 

 

Hebrews, water finders  (second postscript – combined geometry of the Ômolten seaŐ and Hazor qodesh bowl and Gezer calendar)

 

The Gezer calendar from the tenth or ninth century BC was carved on a limestone tablet, enumerating eight periods of time, 2 2 2 1 1 1 2 1 months, in all the dozen months of an agricultural year. Each of the eight periods begins on a Jod, first letter of the Hebrew word for month, also invoking Ja, short for Jahwe, in one of his functions the fertility god, and the numerical value of Jod is 10.

 

8 times 10 equals 80. Imagine a circle of the cirumference 80. Inscribe a square standing on a corner. The side measures practically 18 and the periphery 72 units, yielding 6 units for one month. The implicit value for the square root of 2 is 140/99

 

     1  1  2

     2  3  4

     5  7  10

     12  17  24

     29  41  58

     70  99  140

 

and the value for pi is 22/7, both values belonging to the Solomonic method of combined measures

 

     18 times 140/99 times 22/7 equals 80

 

The year begins at the top corner of the square. Proceed in clockwise direction. Upper and lower left sides

 

     2 months gathering, Tishrei (Sep) Cheshvan (Oct)

     2 months planting, Kislev (Nov) Tevet (Dec)

     2 months late sowing, Shvat (Jan) Adar (Feb)

 

Now you have reached the bottom corner of the calendar square. Go on in clockwise direction. Lower left side

 

     1 month cutting flax, Nisan (Mar)

     1 month reaping barley, Iyar (Apr)

     1 month reaping and measuring grain, Sivan (May)

 

and upper left side

 

     2 months of pruning, Tammus (Jun) Av (Jul)

     1 month summer fruit, Elul (Aug)

 

Each corner of the square would mark a festival and ceremony of the agricultural year, the top corner New Year between summer fruit and gathering, while the circle around the calendar square may symbolize the smooth flow of time, year in year out, granted by the 'Lord most holy who was and will be' (lateral praise on the qodesh bowl from Hazor).

 

We may imagine the calendar figure engraved on a brass disc in a temple, bearing short inscriptions that were copied on the limestone tablet from Gezer by one Abij(a) whose name and signature on the tablet means 'Ja is my father'.

 

A large mirror version of this calendar figure can be integrated into the Solomonic system of combined cubits, a 'black' cubit (bc) of 21 small units, and a 'red' cubit (rc) of 22 small units. Diameter of the circle 80 bc, cicumference 240 rc, side of the inscribed square 54 rc, periphery 216 rc, 18 rc for one month. (Consider how pleasantly the numbers 80 and 18 return.)

 

The large calendar figure might have designed a botanical garden, with a place for the four main agricultural festivals and ceremonies.

 

The Gezer tablet emphasizes the letter Jod which refers to Ja or Jahwe, the heavenly Lord, and has the numerical value 10. We find this number also in the ten commandments, in the proportions of the 'ark of the covenant' and the 'mercy seat' on the ark, in the diameter of the 'molten sea', and in the power form 10 x 10 = 100 in the letter Qoph at the beginning of q d sh qodesh 'holy' on the Hazor bowl that praises the 'Lord most holy who was and will be' in the lateral inscription.

 

Combined Solomonic geometry of the Gezer calender and Hazor qodesh bowl and 'molten sea'

 

     Gezer circle, diameter 80 bc

     inscribed calendar square, side 54 rc

     inscribed qodesh circle, diameter 54 rc

     inscribed equilateral triangle, side 49 bc

     inscribed circle, diameter 27 rc

     inscribed square, side 20 bc

     inscribed circle, diameter 20 bc

     inscribed square, side 13.5 rc

     inscribed circle, diameter 13.5 rc

     inscribed square, side 10 bc

     inscribed circle, diameter 10 bc,

       circumference 30 rc – 'molten sea'

 

The long sequence of easy numbers based on fine approximations (22/7 for pi, 140/99 for the square root of 2, mirror value 70/99, and 343/198 for the square root of 3, mirror value 594/343) leads from the Gezer agricultural calendar via the Hazor qodesh circle and triangle to the 'molten sea' that commemorated the miracle of the well at Kadesh Barnea in the desert of Zin.

 

Whether king Solomon was a historical figure or the personification of an era, he deserves being called a wise man.

 

 

 

 

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