r/atlantis • • 15h ago

Attempting to pin down the Basques mythology

5 Upvotes

The Basque language is unrelated to other language families and they claim to have stayed broadly culturally isolated. However genetically they're similar to the rest of Europe in that they're some part Hunter Gatherer, some part Anatolian Neolithic Farmer and some part Western Steppe Herder.

Their mythology is brief. It's shown in the dark green in the diagram below. Alongside it I've shown extracts from Sumerian, Norse and a little bit of Greek theology trees and made some possible connections.

The Basque gods aren't explicitly described as a continuous theogony tree in the available source but there are indications for which chunk came first given that as goddesses Eguzki and Ilargi are described as grandmothers whereas Mari is described as only a mother.

People may disagree with the links to Sumerian and Norse but I think there's potential here. The Basques emerged out of the Proto-Indo-European milieu like other European cultures. If we accept that myths trace the migrations Europe millennia back into the early Holocene then we would expect continuity.

The strongest link is Sumerian Enki to Eguzki/Ekhi. They are phonetically similar and both are the children of a Mother Earth figure. I think it's possible that the Basque Mother Earth figure may even relate back to Sumerian Lahamu due to the 'Lur' name, but this may not be the case. (Clearly the Basque pantheon is a truncated skeleton of the of the Sumerian and other Indo-European trees and it's possible to see how different gods could have become merged under one figure.)

Enki also has links to the sun via his children but if Enki could be either North Africa or Anatolia, as I currently think he could be, then it doesn't really pip down the location.

Looking at Indo-European trees broadly, I really think that these mythic couples relate the same group mixing event:

Norse 1 - Iðunn + Þjazi

Norse 2 - [ ] + Suttungr

Greek 1 - Dione + Zeus [Saturn]

Greek 2 - Mendeis + Sithon

Sumerian - Ningal + Sin

Egyptian - Nut + Geb (very broad HG + Farmer categories)

Pheonian - [a beloved concubine of Uranus] (name lost) + Siton

To explain these, from what we know of these gods collectively I think that the 'Sithon' male figure represented early migration of farming people who have settled in south Anatolia in 7500 BC and I think his wife, 'Mendeis' represents regions of southern Greece and Italy which at this time is still the territory of the Western Hunter Gatherers although I think these people must have been the Titans. Soon after they must have become the kingdoms of Atlantis/Enki, a Levantine group expanding from the Levant through North Africa. That's not to say that the Western Hunter Gatherers of Wester Europe became Levantine at this time but that this was the dominant ruling force.

Perhaps the Sattungr/Saturn related to Italy given that Sattungr's child is Gunnlöð who is associated with poetry like the Titan Mnemosyne (Atlantean Mneseus) who I think is in Italy.

I imagine there could have been a royal marriage between the Western Hunter Gatherers of South Greece and the new Levantine Farmers around 6700 BC when the farmers move into South Greece. North Greece remained Western Hunter Gatherer until the 8.2ka Event in 6200 BC, and time of the sinking of Atlantis and deluge in Greece. I think North Greece was seen as Uranus/Tiamat.

The question is whether the Basque Mari + Maju/Sugaar could represent this same pair if it existed. Suttungr is an interesting link to Sugaar, and Mari as representing mountains and cave spirits could align to Hunter Gatherers living in southern Greece.

Atarrabi escapes being forced to produce flour. The Igigi were forced into 2500 years of labour, I make the link but I'm not sure. The next story is the origin of agriculture so you might claim it makes sense to come before this but there's a logic to suggest that if there was agriculture under Enki in North Africa, that maybe some Iberomaurusian slaves escaped into Spain in 6000BC? Taking their language with them, and then returned back to a hunter gatherer lifestyle? Only to want agriculture again at a later date, I don't know.

The next part of the Basque myth is very informative. The story goes that the nearby Basajaun start practicing metallurgy and agriculture which is then stolen by Martin Txiki and taken to the Basques. The earliest metallurgy found in Spain dates to just after 5000 BC. Agriculture appear to arrive in the Basque country earlier in 5600 BC and metallurgy as late as after 3000BC. Our metallurgy data is pretty spare, farming however had followed the Atlantic coast of Iberia as far as France by 5000 BC, I think it's possible metallurgy was occurring to a small degree in this area. The Basques are on the opposite side of the France-Spain neck, and this area matches details of the story.

Basajaun is therefore the Pisces/Tartessos people who may have taken in a large portion of the fleeing Levantine Atlanteans.

Lastly the Jentil. This word is though to be adopted from Latin 'Gentile' but we have no proof of this, it's possible that this is a rare occasion of a common word type, it's also similar to the Norse Jotnar and both Jentil and Jotnar mean giants. Jentil becomes associated with the megalithic Dolmens of 3500 BC, so that one's pretty self explanatory.

This is where my combined Indo-European tree attempt is at currently. The marriage mentioned before is shown to the left of the blue Cronos box.


r/atlantis • • 7h ago

The 28,000-Year-Old Prehistoric Remains That Rewrote Human History

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2 Upvotes