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The Fundamental Principles of Old and New World Civilizations / A Comparative Research Based on a Study of the Ancient Mexican Religious, Sociological, and Calendrical Systems cover

The Fundamental Principles of Old and New World Civilizations / A Comparative Research Based on a Study of the Ancient Mexican Religious, Sociological, and Calendrical Systems

Chapter 8: Note.
By Zelia Nuttall
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About This Book

A comparative investigation traces religious, sociological, and calendrical principles across ancient American cultures and their parallels in Eurasia, arguing that native cross and swastika motifs stem from circumpolar astronomy and pole-star worship and often accompany septenary numerical schemes and celestial-state ideals. The study assembles archaeological, linguistic, and iconographic evidence from Mexican, Maya, Zuni, Central and South American sources and compares these with material from China, Western Asia, Egypt, Greece, Rome, and Europe, and includes appendices, word lists, and illustrations while urging further specialist examination rather than asserting a final theory.

Note.

I am indebted to the eminent Prof. Paul Haupt, of Johns Hopkins University, for drawing my attention to the existence of an extremely important and interesting ancient map of Babylonia on an unfortunately broken and mutilated clay tablet also inscribed with cuneiform characters. This tablet is reproduced in photogravure and illustrated by a pencil drawing on pp. 100 and 101 of the Notes on “the Book of Ezekiel” (translated by Prof. C. H. Toy), which forms Part 12 of the monumental polychrome edition of the Bible, which is being edited by Prof. Paul Haupt, with the assistance of Dr. Horace Howard Furness. Although designated as a “Babylonian map of the world” it obviously represents Babylonia as a Middle Kingdom, traversed by the Euphrates and containing Babylon, surrounded by other cities situated in the Euphratean valley.

[pg 602]

Babylonia is enclosed in two large concentric circles representing the sea, designated in a cuneiform inscription as the “Bitter stream” or “Salt water river.” Triangles extend beyond the outer circle, recalling the four “rays or spokes” of the image of Shamash (fig. 65). Cuneiform characters, in one of these triangular spaces, designate it as an island. Professor Toy states that “there seem to have been originally seven of these triangles, but most of them are broken away.” In point of fact only one of the triangles is whole, and distinct traces of three others are preserved. As the mutilated condition of the tablet forbids certainty as to the original number of triangles, I venture to point out that it seems more likely that instead of seven there were originally six triangles around the central disc and that the map of Babylonia constitutes an image of a confederated state, like those of India and Persia (see pp. 480 and 484), conceived as formed of “six dependent and allied states surrounding the seventh ruling state in the centre.”

Referring the reader to p. 348 of this work where “the seven kings” of Babylon are mentioned and seven-fold organization is discussed, I merely state that the importance of the Babylonian map can scarcely be overrated as a proof of the application in remote antiquity of the cosmical scheme to territorial divisions. It will be for Assyriologists to determine for us the relative ages of the Sippara tablet (p. 332 and fig. 65, 1), and the Babylonian Map tablet and to define their respective connections with the “four regions” and “seven directions,” or with quadruplicate and seven-fold schemes of organization. It is my hope that their researches will lead to definite knowledge as to the date when these cosmical schemes were employed in the Euphratean valley.

In conclusion I draw attention to the two interesting wheel-shaped maps of the world also published in the “Notes on Ezekiel” (p. 105), and the remarkable diagram (p. 197), showing the allotment of the land of Canaan according to Ezekiel. On p. 204, in the Notes of Chapter 48 of Ezekiel, there are valuable details concerning the geographical distribution of the tribes of Israel, and the position, in the centre, of the sacred reservation and the symmetrical arrangement of the gates of Jerusalem, which were associated with the cardinal points and tribal representatives.

Z. N.