Feudal ideas

Feudal ideas, Bull, Baltic amber, Early speeders, Herodotus, Hittitian symbolism, Hird head of nobility, Cybele and horsemen, horn-altar, slaves or clients, putout child, secret language, light chariot, Faeton charioteer, Riding-Thor

A reasonable basic thesis is that a formal or informal nobility in all eras have been carrying the so-called culture. Necessity and growth of power have been the engines. In Europe were conditions for this only in few places and mostly on the Mediterranean coast. A new factor was the metals and that the horse come back to Europe. Of course the horses were small but speeded the transport of men and if they were armoured they frightened the peasants. That was half the victory. Trade gave the capital they needed.

Herodotus 480-425 BC is the earliest known Greek to tell systematically collected stories one can believe the most of. He tells that Sesostris I ca 2000 BC in Egypt was the first to collect taxes. He gave each peasant a square of land and then collected a tax for it. But the river and other forces took sometimes land, so they needed re-taxation and so the administration grew. They needed a better method of measuring land. So the trigonometry was born. A poly-form figure may always be divided in triangles. Then it is easily calculated using Pythagorean theorems. They knew them in Egypt and Sumer long before Herodotus and Sesostris.

Surely the trader Thales and other from the Ionian coast met many Celtic druids and wise men at the time when the Celtic Empire or influence reached Phrygia. Greek philosophers saw the druids as their brothers and alike, while others like Pytheas called the Celts indiscriminate barbarians. Nevertheless, the word was of course a signal to other Greeks that Hermes, the cow-thief easily lured Celts and other foreigners.

I once learned that the word barbarian is Greek and means a foreigner, but comes from those wearing a beard. When I had a beard for the first time in early fifties some in a street shouted, "Shave the beard away" ... so I understood perfectly what they mean with the word barbarian. They had never seen real people before.

However we do not know about the administration before that. How did the Year-man Horus administrate the royal land and other parts were in the hands of temples and there were landlords too whatever they called them. But that was in the early crowded land of Egypt.

My analysis is about the philosophical ideas that make food and societies and not in the theological sense searching for believes and spiritual imaginations. It is only when it affect the society such matters are interesting. India is still to day the manifold with many cultures and people. Some of the cultures and religions are older than Rigveda and still in use. That is why India is a good source, but the difficulty is to sort out the subjects.

It is natural that sophisticated cultures grew near rivers with possibilities to go abroad bartering merchandises with others. The lands near rivers were fertile and easy to cultivate and made the basic living conditions and population grew. It was quite the opposite in Scandinavia

Most of Scandinavia was sparsely populated until the eighteenth century AD when the population rapidly grew. For instance my province Dal had about 300 hundreds taxpaying peasants in 1413 and before the emigration in the nine-tenth century were 3000 - 5000 taxpaying peasants. The population of 1413 had only a pair belonging to the upper class of nobility and about a dozen belongings to the lower class.

We do not know about taxation in Scandinavia, but there is a small tale about "men" asking for leather, because their Queen was barefoot and needed shoes. From the Middle Age in Northern Scandinavia we know that the traders got some right to collect fees. Otherwise they perhaps tied many with debts and promising to bring merchandises next summer again. We may suggest that the overall trading during Bronze Age was much alike that in the late wilderness in Lapland and in common at the taiga.

Another system was that of "einbeining" , i.e. one-footed, which meant a tenant. Maybe we see that symbolism in some carvings. However, from a picture to reality is a big step. Maybe a trader brought home the idea and people discussed it and rejected it as out of local fashion.

Still today our Swedish historians preferably tell about the trading and struggling Viking. And else about the Great Power in the seventeenth century and the crowns and glitters from that period. Very seldom we hear about life of the normal family in history. In the pre-Christian era they prefer to write about periods with finds of gold. So, the conclusion is that man exists only when he produces weapons and/or golden jewellery. Only tales about the fantasies of the upper class and their gods are spared. Their history is of course a part of history but not to be generalised to be about all people.

No one needs power as long as the trade route is peaceful. It is not needed in your own area as long as your own farm, village or folk-land is with you like the Viking Age system known from Uppland. Capital is needed even in the barter with products where the stock is the capital. In every moment it must fit the counterpart if exchange should go on. A trader needed to get a trading stock and also the food for the expeditions. Bronze and its components were as money everywhere, but they needed coveted goods that could give a good profit. Amber and skin are traditionally mentioned, but surely there have been lots of other desirable articles in the trade.

The balta and the spears are directed towards the Mights as in the Hittitian symbolism. Of course if someone is looking from the side he can see that the society has the necessary means also in defending against parallel Mights. It is not sure that the animals and signs above are done at the same time. As a whole the symbolism is as peaceful as when in our days the new air-fighters expose their power above our heads, or?

The Hittitian symbolism was mostly on seals. The more than thousand years younger Parthenon speaks power and capital and was also a defence in the class of the stone rows a Carnac. Like many other monumental efforts Hellas was building in a very short time. We may expect that the whole society be in the mood for setting Hellas on the map as they say in our days. Our generation has had a fast sudden development in culture, but is now in a state of decline. That is because the new innovations are fewer and now we get the bills for greedy and too fast expansion. We did not consider the effects on the surroundings. We made the evolution on the expense of environment. Now everyone talks about cuts and the decline becomes a psychological depression.

However, in economy is no difference between selling air-fighters and chirurgical instruments with radioactive material as the knife here meaning the war at the Gulf. The main question is that some parts see it opportune to pay for it. Thus even air bubbles may be traded ... here referring to what words are in advertising. The battle on the commercial field is that the buying potential is limited and then it is a question of preferences what we pay for. If we want a healthy environment and healthy people that are paid for. If we want fancy stuff and missiles that are paid for. Of course the real question is where they make the decisions and they often make them over the peoples head in closed rooms without real democratic control.

In a small population the people are for the most in full control and especially in the Northern wilderness. One cannot play a cruel king in such surroundings. Leaders had always to be in phase with their people. No one takes power if he cannot gain something. Power for power's sake can last only for short and it asks normally for other powers to compete. Or if all are equal there is no need for power, although a leader for the project is always convenient.

Nevertheless about these questions we may only speculate and it is very risky to make generalisations because of the long time and the variations from place to place up to the local conditions.

Hird the head of nobility

We can compare what we know about the organisation of the Hittitian nobility with what we know about Old Norse hird and the same on Ireland when the Vikings met the last Celtic culture there. Then we find much alikeness. The ceremonies of their rituals maybe we can learn from Rigveda in which the Horse was the real animal, however Hittians worshipped also the Bull.

The hird means the men around the king and their power were based on that they were counts of the provinces and some of their salary come from fees and fines, although the king took the lion part and in known kingdoms owned the waste lands.

However we can only speak about nobility and hird where we know it existed. Maybe we can see it in the symbolism in for instance the golden horns from Gallehus, supposed to be made to confirm a treaty between Jutes and Angels before emigration to England in the fifth century. The two horn are different and not and expose what the tribes saw as their world. To this we know some details from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.

In piety I use their own name and suggest that the Eriles were founded inspired maybe by the Phoenicians and traded of course in copper, tin, bronze and ready articles. Thus they formed the first known feudal nobility in Scandinavia. As traders they had no need for direct military power or to rule a land. However it seems that they later learned from the Romans that power could rule a land, but soon they learned also that it is risky and that because they were thrown out from Denmark by the Danish peasants. The question here is the conditions for a feudal class was not fitting the time and place and if it was only in Southern Scandinavia with more people in localities with cultivate land.

The Bull

For about 6000 years water had run from the Taurus Mountains between these two sculptures. The only difference is that the patriarch has overtaken the female mother goddess. Some who really have seen the sculpture tell that she gives birth to a ram. I remember from my younger days in countryside that sometimes dear members of the family got names from the animal world.

We see the figure with an eagle-head in the symbolism during Neo Hittite Era. The eagle was one corner of the trisecting of the night sky when regulating the moon calendar. Maybe the Eagle-man was the symbol of the new moon year.

Anatolia is birthplace of civilisation, said with all respect for Jericho. Catal Hüyük is founded ca 7000 BC and it covers 13 hectares which are only partly excavated. They found enough evidence to show that it was a trade centre with a lot of production.

From this and Anatolia as a whole we see that culture often is consistent and bound to its place more than to changing rulers and tribes. Manifestations have been the same to our days and we see that idols in rituals have been the same for thousands of years. In Catal Hüyük is a kilim-room where the walls are painted in a pattern that still is in use and known as kilim for textiles.

Other temple rooms have ritual symbols as birds, the man, the ram, the bull, leopards in pair, the goddess with flowing hair. In this room we see the Twin Goddesses often seen in the proto-Ionian sphere and the Bull.

Taurus was the symbol of the pharaoh since at least Narmer and it is seen in the symbolism from middle second millennium as opposite to Scorpio. Thus, it must have been star of the spring equinox about 3000 BC.

Neither Sumer nor Babylon had a bull in the zodiac as they had instead a Sitting King and the Man of Sea with a fishtail. The later was perhaps origin of Poseidon in Greece as the influence from Sumer and Babylon on the Aegean world was big.

The Bull in sky we believe is Taurus, but in Middle East their bull was what we know as Kaitos, although the Phoenicians figured it as the Whale. Anyhow in Anatolia it has the earliest known origin in symbolism. Maybe it was not connected to the sky until it became actual about 1700 BC when the spring equinoxes come into the head of Kaitos.

They consisted of ceramic and they may fill their heads with water, which poured out of their nostrils, when they bowed their neck.

Cybele and horsemen

In their temples they kept books of the offers to the gods. They probably named the horned goddess Sarku. Another old goddess was Cybele/Kübebe the nursing one and she was brought to the Celts of Western Europe as Tutting, Didding and other names. Her guard was probably Karhuha, the bear-guise idol for men in the armed forces. Maybe he gave the name to the Finnish "karhu" meaning a bear. My other mother in Denmark would perhaps have called him "Huha that man (karl)" as HUHA was her expression of fear.

Maybe he is of the same kind as Huescar from Spain, who was guarding the young lady and the growing child against different thieves with two or four legs.

Another idol had horse feets and was a fighter in the chariots that become fashion for men with power. Further they had some animals in the Underworld called Tarhunds and surely of the same kind as those in Etruria and why not the Hel-hound Garm in the Edda.

The horn-altar

The principle is surely behind the right to seek asylum in temples or holy places. It is known today and was known in the earliest laws of Scandinavia too. They excavated this altar in Megiddo Palestine and it is from about 1000 BC. However horn altars are found in many places in the Levant and Anatolia and of course not to forget the Minoan culture with horns on their buildings. In Herculaneum Pompey on a wall is a painting of an Isis temple. In the middle of the painting is seen an altar almost exactly of the same shape as that of Megiddo.

Baltic amber

English archaeologists talk about Baltic amber and since these analyses are about history the perspective have to be historical. I suppose English language has got the term from the Romans once ruling most of the islands. The Romans had vague knowledge about what was north of the limes in the same way as the Greeks called all in the inlands barbarians. Maybe Tiberius had been in what they named the Mare Balticum and surely searching for Baltic amber and other fortunes.

Modern archaeologists have tried to follow the routes of amber trade and it would be an unnatural route to freight the amber from the Baltic coast to the Western Mediterranean. Thus, traders in Baltic amber would have used the eastern trade routes through Poland or Russia. On the Atlantic coast of Jutland and downwards would have been enough amber for a west route and cheaper for the tradesmen to get. They needed light and price full goods and amber their own ancestors had used for thousands of years for ritual purposes. For instance double axes in amber are found in passage graves from the fourth millennium.

Slaves or clients

Early archaeologists have speculated in a slave trade with no evidence. The hardest fact is that the population in Scandinavia was too small for slavery as well as for hunting men for the purpose. Otherwise, it seems that it did not fit the ancient laws. If there have been, it is probably after they learnt about slavery from the Greeks and Romans during Roman time. Still, it could not be a generalisation, because how long would a slave trader live if he took his own kind to slavery.

The only possibility is the old Celtic system with clients that become workers for nobility. It is much a game with words but in our days' language a slave has much fewer rights than a worker. It is supposed that the worker himself got paid.

In Mediterranean culture the slavery was of different kinds depending on the work they were doing. Probably they treated slaves in silver mines not so badly that they were unable to work. They surely treated family slaves almost as family members and they trusted them. They allowed them to own property and to get their freedom if they paid a price set. From that are very small steps to clients and tenants.

In Middle Age the church leased their farms to tenants and had also cows on a lease at farmers. The idea of tenants seems to have become known at least in Bohuslaen during Bronze Age. However, as always those without family and property were surely often in the hands of those with much goods in life.

My concern is that I do not want to buy all old clichés about the past. I am writing mostly about the people and not about the nobility. Today they want only to hear about Vikings, gold, power and might. Surely the culture was and is created by the nobility. Those who create culture for its sake produce only kitsch and are far from real culture concerning people as well as nobility. In the past the nobility made and decided what should be ideas and idols for society.

Nowadays it has become a virtual jungle. I see no good in it, because I have analysed it too deep, I expect.

The putout child

The early nobility had problems in motivating their right to take power, as the natural law is that all beings are equal with equal rights to have a living space. That is why we find some myths they used to confuse the issue. One sidestep was to tell they were god-begotten or as Remo and Romulus nursed by a Lupo ... that have the other meaning a whore. Widely spread was the myth of Horus used to describe a putout child that was adopted and come to power.

The Sumerians told they come from Dilmun supposed to be in south, but it could be in the opposite direction. Safest way is to stick to the manifestos and possibilities for a culture to flourish. That leaves that there have been traders as well as cultivators behind the Sumerian culture. None of them are learnt without a lot of knowledge and practice.

There is some tale about the origin of Hittites too. We could understand the fact that there is a myth of origin as they had something to hide. But words are words and the culture of theirs is as Anatolian as it can be. Maybe they were an original Anatolian tribe and inspired by a factory from the Sumerians or Babylonians like the earliest known factory in Kanesh. The Turks came less than a thousand years ago and overtook and continued the old Anatolian culture.

They work on a dictionary in Sumerian, I read, consisting of more than 60000 words. That many words were not in use either 3000 or 2000 BC. But Sumerian became like Latin for Babylonians and related states and lived long after ca 2000 BC when the Babylonians took rule. In our days it is impossible to create a pure Sumerian. Many words we use for gods and idols may be Akkadian or Babylonian but store in Sumerian.

An awkward question is "How come that they took only the Jews to prison in Egypt and Babylon"? In the area were several tribes about which we know nothing. Was it because the Jews were loudmouths that told the entire world that they are the best and chosen to whatever they like? Their own prophet Amos warned them against overweening pride. In Sweden we call the Law of Jante that no one should believe he is a king if not chosen by society.

Egypt and Babylon were forerunners for the later Machiavelli who told the sovereign that a conquered land should be emptied from the natives and new settlers moved in. According to what here is said about continuity of culture, we should perhaps add that all the old manifestations of culture should be totally demolished. There are many examples that a native tribe recovers and if signs of culture are left it is renewed and speeded up.

The Jews are a good example that misfortunes tie people together and increase their pride. They also show that awareness of history can make a little tribe fill the entire universe. Of course we should ask the Palestinians how it is to live under the chosen people. Those living as refugees since 50 years see it perhaps as the limbo to a holocaust. In a global world we all get blood on our fingers when fellow members of humankind are treated ill ... or as the old protection formula says, "As everyone knows, if the Naked and innocent is tramped on, it causes future illness." Here in free translation.

The step between god-begotten and chosen is very small. In our days some have mostly Palestine and bible as homeland, while others have America as our own fine land is not good enough. It is the question if others believe in the message that some should have more power than others. In long run it becomes a question of how much people can stand with self-respect and carrying humanity with pride. It seems to be an everlasting question which grows with population and richness in society and perhaps also in time lack of finite resources in nature.

Egypt, Babylon and Persia were the only empires for a longer period to conquer the Middle East. The Great Alexander Empire lasted for only 13 years. In the ideology of power it has got the same proportion as the borrowed religion from the little Jewish tribe. Still, the Jews borrowed most of their religion and history from others. They tell us that their calendar began 3761 BC, but in reality they got it from the Babylonians 597 BC.

The main religious myths are of Sumer-Babylonian origin and the monotheism they learnt from Egypt. When Moses went to the mountain to meet the god, it was in the same way Sumerians met Enlil at the mountain. The living idols a priestess queen and a priest king had a yearly marriage at the mountain, i.e. the ziggurat.

The best rhetors sell most whatever it is religion or merchandises. The religious words of Ron Hubbard are today the costliest and as always one can never question monopoly and fundamentalism. Monopolies or semi-monopolies may force one to pay for tennis, golf and a lot of things at the same time one buy a product.

Secret language of nobility

Not only the religious society and their temples create a vocabulary and myths of their own. I remember the data culture in the early sixties and a friend became freak. His language was hardly understood when he used many data words. I am not sure he understood it himself but the other freaks let me understand they were talking about important matters ... later I learned a lot. That is why I have my doubts about his knowledge those days.

However, data and computers are some very difficult tasks. Try to get help with your computer and one learns fast that solving the problem by own means is easier and cheaper.

Normal everyday language uses a few thousand words. Linguaphone meant that 300 words in English could make a conversation, but that is too poor and may lead to using the hands. I suppose the data language needs a few thousand words today. Yet for freaks it is enough for a chat about nothing.

Anyhow specialised groups will always create their own gobbledegook heard with normal ears it is like Latin. I wonder what people thought in the days of Catholic Church using only Latin. Maybe that is why the fantasies about devils and other beings were so vivid.

We are brought up to believe in words and that is the reason why people believe in virtual reality although it is least of all real. That slightly ambiguous use is called rhetoric and has always been used to get people in the suite to follow gods, priest and leaders. Time and outcome is the real judge.

We may have our doubts about the superiority of civilisation since it became man-eating and diminish our living space destroying the manifold. Still, Anatolia is our oldest root in urban civilisation. Only e few thousand years older than our megalith culture, which is without, clear continuous culture we may follow and understand because of early texts from second millenium BC.

Some scientist comes easy around the problem that we in Western Europe have no plain texts from the early days of civilisation. They simply say that there was no culture or it was so primitive that is not worth mentioning. Still we have the evidence in megaliths and rock carving and many completing finds. A ritual double axe from fourth millenium BC can tell us much if we only are respectful and on equal base mentally with our ancestors. Then they tell us their story.

Another part of history is hidden in language but hard to sort out and already mixed with wrong interpreting. The same is valid for our place names that tongue and misinterpreting has made less understandable. The fact that the sciences are too specialised causes that a discipline cannot use other disciplines' results or methods.

Saying that our culture came from the south is easy. Yet, much of the culture came with trade and then they had to barter with something. Amber is a good example and they have found that this trade in Western Europe developed in two steps. First was the trade with Middle Europe and the metal traders there. Second steps were during Middle Bronze Age with the Mediterranean and we may find evidence from the Aegean sphere and from the Carthage-Etrurian sphere.

Our development has not been that of wandering people or big men with beards and clubs. In reality it has been the same flow as today. Some have immigrated with people that were the best way to learn complicated methods as metallurgy and cultivating. Other cultures have come with trade direct or indirect via Middle Europe. Maybe there have been missionaries and some traders like the Phoenicians seem to have been almost missionaries. Lastly perhaps some have spent summer holidays as a trip to the south. When we see some of the richest rock carvings with many layers, it looks like a sketch board where some have told about how it was in the South.

Excavations like the 8000-year-old Vistehula, Norway teaches us that the so-called primitive settlements were much more complex than we may imagine. Different styles and finds in different localities teach us that in a manifold culture we cannot generalise and be satisfied with one explanation. We can only bind our observations to the particular time and space. Still, the impressionist taught us that we do not need to see all details in a picture to get and impression of something.

Early speeders

From Babylon they had to withdraw, but after Kadesh they divided Syria between themselves. These facts tell that this relatively small population had a skilful army.

Boys of every age from the cradle to their seventies love speed and many are fond of maybe not war but the hierarchies created by that men's league. For the weaker the league is a shell and for the strong it is an allowed way to be higher and better than others. People around the league permit it if not too costly or if the land meets a threat. When established the league's problem is to get the means and signs to show the superiority. Next step is of course to take this from others outside their native land. The logic of war and league gives itself when they establish it.

Speed in a light chariot

Try a ride in a very light chariot with two frisky horses in spring and you know what fascination of speed is. The carving on the Vilfara stone is much alike that in the Kivik grave both in Skaane.

The wildest ride I experienced in younger days was a ride with a diligence and four big black horses of the Oldenburg breed. We were two on the driver's seat and could only let the horses have their own will for about thirty kilometres. On the way home it was much slower, but next day it was the same wild ride again. The equipage was meant to take passengers, but we did not dare with those wild horses.

The earliest horse breeds were small in type of ponies or the horse from Iceland. We see it here on the cauldron from Gundestrup Denmark. Different signs of the men's league we see on the men's gear. In the picture is also a Big Man or leader. In early days a fight between the Big Men solved some disputes of the two hordes. Another fight was that with words and we call it debate today. It was like the debate between two candidates to politic power.

The size of horses remained the same until the era of knights with heavy armour. The Hittitian equipage consisted of two horses, the light chariot, the driver and his company in the beginning with spears and later with a bow. In the wilderness the chariot was easily split in pieces or they carried it with them.

The speed and mobility were the secrets behind the power. However, they needed a suitable terrain. In the northern wilderness early short distances of roads are found, but it was only in SouthEast Scandinavia there was terrain for easy riders. Surely it was a game only for those with resources.

It is mush like I remember in my childhood when youngsters ride on the beach in evenings. The game was to throw a javelin through a ring hanging between two poles. Here it might be three teams in a ceremony.

In night-light is seen that they made seven of the chariots deeper than the rest. Maybe they after a period of discussion become symbols of seven summer moons.

The Indian Rig-Veda has several poems about the fire offer to Agni. The chariot is split in its parts and they are symbols for different parts of the ceremony.

Same symbolism we see in some of our carvings with chariots and are also seen in Val Camonica Italian Alps. Perhaps they saw that they had no use of the chariot, but could maybe use it for other purposes. I remember that mentality from the countryside. It was that we called Kajsa Warg recipes how to use what is at hand, but nothing should be unused or thrown away. Especially things paid with money or work. In our days of commercialism and maximisation of consumption it is always tear-and-throw-away.

The two figures with long skirts maybe tell about influence from Syria. We see the same theme in Brastad; Kalleby; Aspeberget; Varlaus; Kasen Ryk; Hjaelpesten all in Bohuslaen. In Norway the motive is found in Skjeberg; Borge; Sarpsborg; Flatberg. Except the Fraenarp carving, Kivik and Viltfara there are no finds in rest of Scandinavia. Most of them are two-wheel chariots and there is only a few four wheel wagons.

Faeton charioteer of the Sun

Who would not like to be the Charioteer of the Sun? An association when seeing this carving from Aanneraud Bohuslaen. Or maybe it is the warning for hubris. Phaeton got it for that high speed driving is only for the real kings with power.

The Icelanders tell that Thor was the Riding-Thor with his equipage pulled by he-goats. Thor drives above the thundercloud and the rumble comes from his chariot. That is why they call him also the Thunderer.

As child I had a friend who got a little chariot and goats from his father and we had some fun in driving around in a miniature world it seemed. With my lack of vivid imagination seeing that the big god could have been in a chariot of the size we used is hard. Perhaps gods have bigger chariots and goats?

It is maybe the guise of Thor we see on the back of one goat. We see the helper Tjalve on the seat. Maybe some half-men seen in the late period of carvings are the helper who does it.

The influence from the Hittites might be the belt seen in a period on short-skirted men. That kind is also seen in reliefs in Anatolia and as said we see the long skirt in Syria as we shall see in the next chapter.