Sunday 20 February 2011

About the Archaic Roman cultures of Western & Southern Europe

Flickr Photo by miabacke, 2009: Gallo Romeins Museum in Tongeren, Belgium. Archaic Roman Empire, Gallo Romans.

French men from Saint-Vaast-la-Hougue in Normandy, France. Tatihou, Bagpipe and Bodhran (frame drum).

A. B.
C. D.

A. Mosaic of Diane from the archaic Roman Empire. Bardo in Tunisia. Second Century CE. Mosaïque retrouvé à Utique représentant Diane chasseresse. Women hunted in the archaic Roman Empire, just as they did in the ancient Sami cultures (ref. e.g. the following wood cut by
Olaus Magnus, 1555). Sami hunters in the Nordic, a woman is depicted between two men.
B. Detail of a larger archaic Roman Empire mosaic.
C. Mosaic from the archaic Roman Empire. Boy with Lasso. Tunis Carthage Villa romaine. Tunis, Mosaïque à la villa de la volière à Carthage.
D. Mosaic from the archaic Roman Empire. Plate with a depiction of a woman with a hat. Italy, exhibited at Milano Museo archeologico. Foto di Giovanni Dall'Orto, 25-7-2003. Compare this photo with one from the Nordic: Photo of a Sami woman from Härjedalen in Sweden.

I will again stress the importance to distinguish between two periods in history, a distinction that often is confused and silenced:

I] The archaic pre-christian Roman Empire was governed from Rome. The archaic Roman Empire fell about 400 CE when they were attacked and plundered by the christian Romans from Byzantium. However, it took a long time to christianize Western Europe, they already had a religion. The Western Roman Empire disintegrated into many small kingdoms after 400 CE. The Archaic Roman cultures seem to have been a merge between the cultures of the indigenous European and that of the Indo-Greeks.

II] The people of the Eastern Roman Empire had early been christianized, they were first governed from Rome and later from Constantinople. The people of the Eastern Roman Empire (later named Byzantine or Byzantium) were the ones that attacked and ruined Rome and the Western Roman Empire. Constantinople became very rich e.g. because of their plunderings of the Archaic Romans. The eastern people of Byzantine always called themselves "Romans" even if the official language early had been changed from Latin to Greek (ref. Wikipedia: Early Middle Ages). The Eastern Roman Empire lasted more than thousand years longer than the archaic Roman Empire. It fell from the 1200’s mainly due to expansion of Islam, e.g. the Ottoman Empire was established in 1299. This explains why the Christians with long agricultural traditions in South Eastern Europe (i.e. areas near the Black Sea) were pressured from the east and into Western Europe during the medieval period. These people were e.g. Dacian, Carphatians, Jews, and Scythians and they mass-invaded Western Europe in a very violent wave from the early medieval. In the 1400’s e.g. Denmark had been named “Dacia” (Map by Nicholas Doni, 1482) and Jylland (an area of Denmark) was called “Judland” (ref. Erich Pontoppidan, 1753).

Photo by Fæ, 2010. Path of the earliest migrations of Christian Eastern Romans from Byzantine and path coins of the Hoxne Hoard map. British Museum. During the first migrations they attacked and robbed the Western Romans, until the Western Roman Empire fell. In the medieval there were mass invations of different groups of people from the same areas in Byzantine, as Islam established in the south-eastern parts of Europe.

Who were the Eastern Romans? They came from the Eastern European areas west of the Black Sea, from Constantinople and other Turkic areas (e.g. Smyrna). Phrygia: The Christian Phryigians with red conical caps, similar to the one of the Dacian man in the photo a). There are many Turk names in the southern part of the Nordic and in Europe (e.g. Turku in southern Finland, Dürkheim in Germany, Turken and Durken in Sweden, Turkli and Turkarstad in southern Norway). Were their origin also from the ancient area called Tracii or Thracia? They called themselves Caucasians. Christianity developed early in Armenia and in Constantinople and in South Eastern Europe. Most of the people in the later areas Byzantium were part of the archaic Roman Empire before ca. 400 CE. Click on the following photos:
a) Dacian man. Photo by Sailko, 2010. b) Illustration from the Schedel'schen Weltchronik, Blatt 135 verso. 1493. Constantinople. c) Sardonyx cameo depicting constantine the great crowned by Constantinople, 4th century CE. d) Scythian king Skiluros. Exhibited at the Archaeological Museum of Odessa. Photo by Erud, 2010.

The Cultures of The Archaic Roman Empire

Reconstruction of Iron Age settlement in the UK. Ancient Technology Centre Cranborne - geograph.org.uk - 292299. Photo by Simon Barnes, 2006. Archaic Roman Empire in the UK.


A typical Iron Age turf hut in the UK
Added by Peter Cresswell in the linked site.
This hut is resembling the Gamme (turf hut) of the Sami people in the Nordic areas.


The two photos over are from the Nordic areas in the late 1800's and early 1900's. The first are likely Goth Sami people from the areas between Norway and Sweden, and the black & white photo are two Sami people in front of a Gamme (turf hut) in Dalarna county in Sweden.


THE ISLAND OF ARRAN - SCOTLAND - AND THE PICTISH NATION

The two books of Arran (1. & 2.) have different contents.
1. The Book of Arran
2. The Book of Arran
3. The Pictish Nation, its people and its church


Photo of Iron Age Skulls found at the Isle of Arran in Scotland.

Compare these to the Skull, skeleton in an ancient grave from Varanger in Finnmark, Norway. Does it resemble the skulls of the Giants (i.e. Celts) of early Arran (fig. 51 in the illustration over)? Grave finding from Varanger in Finnmark, Norway. Grave finding from the same area as mentioned over, and so is the following: Ring buckle.

At page 136 in "The book of Arran" the text tells that there was a merge of the ancient people (the indigenious Europeans and the Euroasians), and at page 135 it is told that one of these ancient people where of Asian descent. The Eurasians are according to the author still present at the European continent and they came to Arran via the Continent and over the North Sea.

Page 135: Isle of Arran.

According to the authors of "The Book of Arran" (p. 11) and "The Pictish Nation, its people and its church" (p. 448): The Vikings were the "Dubh Galls" (Danish strangers with some Hunnish in them) and the "Finn-Galls" (Norwegian white stangers, i.e. Norse). These books are referring to e.g. archaeological and old text sources. According to old and newer litterature and common knowledge in Norway: "Finn" was a nomen used for the Sami people (previously called the Lapps) in the the present areas of Norway. In Sweden "Lapp" and "Lap" is also the same as "Fenn" (ref. page 288 in "Lexicon Lapponicum" by Erico Lindahl and Johanne Öhring, 1780). The book is available at www.archive.org

The "Finn Galls" = Norse = Vikings.

Read more about the Vikings in an article by Andrew Pearson: "Piracy in Late Roman Britain: A perspective from the Viking Age". Brittannia XXXVII (2006), p. 337-356. The Vikings were more like traders than like Pirats.

These books also mention a period in history called "Fingallian Age" in the UK. There are some place names still today in Scotland that reflects the Fingallian Age e.g. Fingall's Cave (p. 252 residence of the Finn or Feinne when hunting at Arran), Fingal's Cauldron Seat at Machrie Moor (p. 252) is a circle of stones. Such names are also found in other parts of the British Isles and Ireland, e.g. in Lamlash and in Ireland. "Aran Islands" and in Skerries (Na Sceiri in Irish) in North Dublin there is a place called "Fingal" (this name is related to Norse).

Because of the Norse influence, many current place names on Arran are of Viking origin. Downie (1933 pp.42–43 ) states that the attack led by the Earl of Lennox in 1406 "utterly destroyed" the structure: Isle of Arran.

"Arran" is a name used by the Nordic Sami people, meaning “fire in the center”. Region names that starts with “Arran” are in Spain and France. Region names that start with “Aran” are in Italy, Switzerland, Spain and France. Source: worldnames.publicprofiler.org
"Aran" is also a place name in Ireland.
Place names that starts with “Arran” are in France (Arrancy, Arrans), in Iran (Arran), Portugal (Arranho), USA (Arran), and on the West Bank (Arranah). Place names that starts with “Aran” are in Zambia (Aran), Turkey (Aran), Syria (Aran), Spain (Arana, Aran), Russia (Arani, near the Caspian Sea), Philippines (Aran), Papua New Guniea (4 x Aran), Pakistan (Aranda, Arandu, Arang & Arani), New Zealand (Aranga, Aranda), Mali (Aranga), Iraq (Aran), Iran (3 x Aran, Aranaj, Arand, Arandi), India (Arang, Arani, Arann), Ghana and Gabon (Aranga), France (Aranc, Arance), Eritrea (Aranat), Chad (Arango, Aranha), Burma (Arang), Bangladesh (Arani), Azerbaijan (Arano, Aran, Aranli), Andorra (Arans), Algeria (Aranim) and in Afghanistan (Aranji). Names that start with “Aran” are additionally found in many places on the American continent. Source: Maplandia.com.


Gosfort cross with depictions of ancient European Gods, likely these are related to the ones in the Nordic from the Iron Age period. Gosforth Cross in the English County of Cumbria. Pay attention to the body ideal these ancient Gods are made after. The body ideals used in the art of the archaic people in the Roman Empire was generally very different from the body ideals used later by the christian Eastern Romans.

This is fragment and a description about the findings in King's Cave which indicate that people sacrificed to the ancient Gods in this cave.

Fragment in bronze with ornament. Is this item and the item described the same as Torsviggar in the Nordic? Torsviggar (they was made in different materials)
Read more about Torsviggar in this blog. Torsviggar was used in the worship of Thoragalles/ Tiermes.

Page 215 in The Book of Arran about the King's Cave.


Partial Reconstruction of Pictish Hut, Archeolink - geograph.org.uk -113079. Photo by Colin Smith, 1997.


As mentioned in The Book of Arran, the Eurasian people were still living in Central Europe. The Gallo Romans were likely a merge between the Asian Indo-Greeks and the indigenous people of Western Europe.

A tent of the ancient Gallo Romans. Flickr Photo by miabacke, 2009: Gallo Romeins Museum, in Tongeren, Belgium.

A Sun symbol of the Gallo Romans. Flickr Photo by miabacke, 2009: Gallo Romeins Museum in Tongeren, Belgium.

A sun-circle symbol from Birkenes in Norway about 300 CE (i.e. Nordic Iron Age). Likely related to the archaic Romans in the Nordic.

1. Archaic Roman Empire. Roman pottery Central Gaulish Samian jar. Late 2nd century. Exhibited at the British museum. Photo by AgTigress, 2010.
2. Mosaic floor from the archaic Roman Empire, 2nd century CE in the Domus di via San Rocchino, Brescia, Italy.

This sun symbol are resembling the ones found in archaic Greece and elsewhere in Europe, here in the ancient city of Lappa at Crete.
Sun symbol mosaic in the ancient city of Lappa Λάππα, Crete in Greece. Mosaique romaine à Argiroupoli en Crête. Photo by Amaury Gravi, 2007. Archaic Greek.

Photos from ancient Lappa: The ancient city of Lappa or gr. Λάππα (Rethymno Argiroupoli). Another place with the name "Lappa" (Λάππα) is in Larissos, Achaea in Greece and additionally there is the place called "Lapas" in Akhaia, Greece.

The remains of ancient Lappa from 500-400 BCE at Crete resemble many of those in the Nordic areas. As in the Nordic the archaic Greeks made classical labyrinths and used drums religiously and used similar religious symbols as in Iron Age Nordic: Sun crosses, X -crosses, swirling wheels, interlaced patterns, geometrical patterns, classical labyrinths (many are found in Finnmark, Norway) and much more.

According to ancient texts Lapetsius, Lapersios, and Laphystius were surenames of the Greek God Zeus (references found in: theoi.com/Cult/ZeusTitles.html).

The ancient (archaic) people named "Lapiths" (Greek: Λαπίθαι) were a people from the northern mountains of Thessaly in Greece. It is told that the Lapiths were mythological; however there are place names globally that suggests that there were real people related to the name "Lapith" or "Lapit", for instance in Costa Rica (Lapita), Cyprus (Lapita), Germany (Lapitz), Greece (Lapithos), Nigeria (Lapite and Lapiti), and Russia (Lapitsa). Doing searches for resembling place names: e.g.: Belarus (Lapine), Estonia (Lapi), Finland (Lapia), Indonesia (Lapi), Italy (Lapio), Lithuania (Lapiai), Madagaskar (Lapiro), Mozambique (Lapi, Lapia, Lapio), Nigeria (Lapido, Lapite, Lapiti), Poland (Lapino), Russia (Lapin, Lapino, Lapina), Spain (Lapice, Lapio), Ukraine (Lapino), and USA (Lapile, Lapine). Source: Maplandia.com.

Searching for surnames with “Lapit”, "Lappit" and "Lappitt" is most frequent in United Kingdom / UK and Ireland. “Lappit” is most frequent in the USA and low frequent globally. “Lapin” is most frequent in USA, Poland, France, Norway, Germany, and lower frequent in Austria, Netherlands and in the United Kingdom / UK. “Lapi” is most frequent in Italy, then in Serbia, USA, Argentina, Spain, France, Switzerland, Sweden, then Germany, United Kingdom / UK, and low frequent around the globe. Source: Worldnames.

X-cross at carved stone resembling a Yoni at an archaic Doric site at Agios Nicolaos, Crete, 5th Century BCE. Flickr Photo by Lessi2306, 2007. Arhaic Greek.

A labyrinth at Holmen Grå on the coastal line of Bøkfjorden, Kirkenes in Norway. Resembling labyrinths are found in Sweden, Finland, Kola Peninsula and in the Baltic countries. They resemble the ancient labyrinth of Knossos in Greece. Read more in "Lapps and Labyrinths: Saami Prehistory, Colonization, and Cultural Resilience" (2010) by Noel D. Broadbent with contributions by Jan Stora.

shiva lingum, maheshwar
Flickr Photo by nevil zaveri, 2009. A Shiva Lingum in Maheswhar, Madhya Pradesh, India.
This is likely a fertility symbol with a lingum on a Yoni and a labyrinth. Similar labyrinths are found all over Europe. Used by the archaic people. First of all similar symbols were used by the archaic Greeks, then by the people of the archaic Roman Empire, such labyrinths are found in Spain, France, UK, Germany, and in the Nordic. There are many such classical labyrinths found in Finnmark, Norway and in the Sami areas of present North-Western Russia. The Yoni was used by the ancient Greeks, such as the one found at Crete with a sun-cross instead of a lingum. Lingum are in the ancient Nordic likely the same as the many iron-age phalluses that primarily were made in stone.


The archaic culture of Greece and Rome were closely related. The people that had settled and more or less had merged with the indigenous people in these cultures had very likely Asian roots.

Tenny Frank - Race Mixture in the Roman Empire - The American Historical Review, 1895. Race mixture in The Roman Empire by Tenney Frank (1916). Additionally this article is available at www.archive.org


Tenney Franks (1916) writes for instance the following:

"To discover some new light upon these fundamental

questions of Roman history .... It has at

least convinced me that Juvenal and Tacitus were not exaggerating.

It is probable that when these men wrote a very small percentage of

the free plebeians on the streets of Rome could prove unmixed

Italian descent. By far the larger part - perhaps ninety per cent -

had Oriental blood in their veins".

Ancient Rome: Plebeian Council


Tenny Frank - Race Mixture in the Roman Empire - The American Historical Review, 1895


Archaic Greek bronze figure of Hermes from 6th Century BCE, in 1896 it was exhibited in Athens.


Traditional Sami clothing. Pay attention to resemblance between the Sami clothing seen in the linked photo and compare it to that of the archaic Greek God Hermes as he was depicted in the given statue from the 6th Century BCE. Particularly, pay attention to the wings on the legs of the God and compare them to the resembling ones on the legs of the young Sami man.


Hermes - D'Ermes - d'hermès - Tiermes/Diermes

Hermes” is in Italian “L'erma” i.e. “Erma”(“ἕρμα” in Greek) or “Ermes” and in French d'hermès. The letter “H” is silent: Erma and Ermes


The Oxford scholar Lewis Richard Farnell was specialist in classical subjects and he published in 1896 a book with the title: The Cults of the Greek States. There are two chapters about Hermes.

The Greek God Hermes (the son of Zeus and Maia) had an epithet in ancient Greece “Ἀγήτωρ” which is transliterated to Agetor. Another epithet is Hermes Kriophoros and is related to the sacrifice of ram. Kriophoros means according to a Wikipedia article “ram bearer”.

The Sami thunder-god might have a connection to the ancient Greek God Hermes, Herma or Ermes, at least when he thunders. The thundering or roaming Thoragalles or Thor is named "Ti-ermes" (pronounced as di-ermes). There are symbolical similarities between Thora galles and Hermes, as you can see by comparing the text by Scheffer and illustrations of Hermes.
Both Tiermes and Hermes are symbolized in a way that resembles a Shiva linga i.e. a phallus shape with a head. According to old texts about the practice of the ancient Sami religion Thor was crossed on the chest with blood from the sacrificed animal. The ancient Sami used X-crosses when sacrificing (ref. Knud Leem, ca. 1724).


Documented by the christian priest Knud Leem in the early 1700's (published in 1767) was a offering place of the Sami in Norway, a place with X-crosses. Pay attention to the X's on the bow and raised on the stones. Similar X-crosses have been used in ancient Greece a few hundred years BCE.


Johannes Scheffer (1674), page 144 Chapter X: Sami men run a sharp knife through the heart of a reindeer buck and gather the blood from the heart. The image of Thor is placed on an altar and is offered to by drawing crosses with the blood on the chest of the deity.

See illustrations that documents the sacrifice to Tiermes or Thor: Tiermes, Thor or Thora galles.
I do not yet know how the ancient Nordic God Thor or Thora Galles is related to Hermes and Mercury.

When searching for place names that start with “Thor” and “Tor” it does seem that this name is globally spread: Region names that start with “Tor” are found in Spain, Slovenia and Italy. Region names that start with “Thor” are found in France. Source: Worldnames.
Places with the exact name “Tor”, “Torr”, “Tora”, “Tore” are in e.g.: Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cote d’Ivorie, Croatia, Democratic Rep. Of Congo, Ethiopia, Fiji, Iran, Italy, Kazakhstan, Mozambique, Pakistan, Philippines, Senegal, South Africa, Spain, Sudan, Sweden, Togo, United Kingdom/ UK. Places with the exact name “Thor”, “Thorr”, “Thors” and “Thora” are in e.g.: Australia, Austria, Finland, France, Germany, Haiti, Pakistan, and USA. Source: Maplandia.com. The most frequent location for names that starts with “Tor” and “Thor” is in present national state of Pakistan (mainly in Jammu & Kashmir, Sind and Punjab). Pakistan was before 1947 part of India.


Greek Hermes is also depicted with crosses or crossed arms, as can be seen in some of the figure in the following illustration. The Greek sacrificed animals to Hermes.



The illustration shows examples of archaic Greek Hermes statues.

The archaic Roman God Mercury is related to Hermes.

Relief with the ancient Roman god Mercury. A man is offering a goat at an altar. At the Roman Museum, Augusta Raurica in Switzerland. Photo by Ad Meskens, 2010.

Carving of Mercury in Kirby Underdale. Pay attention how different the body ideal of the archaic Romans was from the ideals of the later Christian Romans. This one of ancient Mercury in Yorkshire is short in stature and the shoes have a particular shape. Similar shoes are used by the Nordic Sami people and can be seen on an ancient Indo-Greek Buddhist Kanishka casket Kanishka casket (dated to 127 CE) is found in Peshwar, present Pakistan/ ancient India.

Region names that start with “Terme” are in Italy, France and Spain. Region names that start with “Herme” are in France, Italy, Switzerland, Germany and Belgium. Place names that start with “Therm” are in Cyprus, Greece and USA. Place names that start with “Term” are in Belgium, Chad, France, Indonesia, Iran, Ireland, Peru, Switzerland and Turkey. Places that start with “Herme”, “Herma” and “Hermuk” are in Belgium, Czech Republic, France, Germany, and Iran.
Places that start with “Dierm” (as in Diermes) are in Burkina Faso and Netherlands. There is one place in Spain named "Tiermas" (Zaragoze, Aragon) Source: Maplandia.com. As you can read at the end of this blog post there is additionally the ancient city of Tiermes in Soria, Spain.
Doing searches for surnames with the same words: “Termes” is most frequent in Spain, Netherlands, France, Germany, Argentina and USA. “Hermes” is a surname most frequent in Germany, USA, Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria, Spain, France, United Kingdom/ UK, Poland, Canada, Norway, and Italy. “Herme” is most frequent in France, Belgium, Argentina, USA, Spain and Germany. “Herma” is most frequent in Poland, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Canada, Argentina, Spain, France, United Kingdom / UK, Italy, USA and Norway. The surname “Erma” is high frequent in Italy, Belgium, India, Germany and USA. The surname “Derma” is most frequent in Slovenia, Argentina, Poland, Germany, USA, Spain and Netherlands. Source: Worldnames.

There are several places in Europe with the name Tiermes and Termes.
Ruins of the ancient Roman city of Termancia or Tiermes, Soria, Spain. Photo by Rowanwindwhistler, 2002. Archaic Roman Empire.

At the top there is a construction that likely is part of a Mercury temple. A resemling can be seen in the following photo from France: Rock of the Mercury temple, Wasenbourg castle, France




Map: Spain

Tiermes is an archeological site in present day Spain. Montejo de Tiermes was an ancient city in Soria, Spain. The city was important in wars during 153- 133 BCE. The western Romans conquered Tiermes in 98 BCE. There were walls built around the city in the 3rd century under the crisis of Christian invasions and the importance of Tiermes crumbled when the late Roman Empire (after 400‘s CE) was Christianized and was likely settled by e.g. the Christian Vandals of the Eastern Roman Empire. Video: Tiermes site. Tiermes.net (more photos and video).Sources: Celtiberian and Roman city of Tiermes and Tiermes


Tiermes in Soria, Spain