Early Nordic/Germanic Culture

(October 6, 2023) When the Indo-European invaders settled down in Europe around 2000 BCE five major mixed cultures emerged from different mixings of the native Druidic with the Indo-European cultures. The purely Druid cultures (Minoan, Etruscan, Phoenician, Israelite) survived temporarily on the periphery. These new mixed cultures were:

  1. Celtic (red) 
  2. Nordic (blue)
  3. Slavonic (yellow)
  4. Mycenean (orange).
  5. Latin (green)

The mixed cultures (except for the Latins) developed along major riverine trading networks. The Celts originated around the Danube/Rhine corridor and the English and Irish channels, The Nordic (Norse/Germans) originated around the Scandinavian coastline and rivers of the Elbe, Oder, and Vistula. The Slavonic people originated along the Dnieper and Don rivers and the Black Sea coastline. The Myceneans (Hellenes/Greeks) originated along the Greek rivers and the Aegean sea. The language of these mixed people were various mixes of Indo-European and Druidic Akkadian although their priestly class (the Druids of classical times) continued to speak and write in Akkadian. 

A good video by The Historian Craft on the subject. Hoby is apparently pronounced "hooboo" by Danish speakers. The description of the ritual and burial site having ponds representing Hekate near the end is especially interesting.

Early Danish Religious and Political Culture During Roman Times

(July 5, 2023) An important item to remember is that the tribe called the Cibri lived at the northern tip of Denmark. After being repulsed from Germany by the battle of Teutonberg forest in 9 CE and making the decision that Germany was just not worth conquering, Rome set up defensive forts and made defensive diplomatic relations along its border.  One such alliance was with a tribe on the Danish island of Lolland centered near the town of Hoby where the grave goods of a young chief were discovered at a ritual site having small ponds. This burial dates to between (1 and  -200 CE).

References

Frei, Karin; and Klingenberg, Susanne (2021) Re-visiting the Roman Iron Age Hoby chieftain burial after 100 years of its discovery - adding the strontium isotopic perspective.  Danish Journal of Archaeology. Vol 10. Online at:  https://doi.org/10.7146/dja.v10i0.122601

Klingenberg; Blankenfeldt; Søsted; Nielsen; Jensen (2018) HOBY — AN EXCEPTIONAL EARLY ROMAN IRON AGE SITE IN THE WESTERN BALTIC REGION. Online at:  https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1600-0390.2017.12179.x

Germany as described by Roman historian Tacitus in 98 CE. Tacitus was quick to disrespect their culture but he still has some good information although his attempt to connect their deities with Roman ones is completely wrong.

Quotes on Germanic Religious Culture By Roman Historian Tacitus (98 CE)

(July 2, 2023) Tacitus gave Roman or Egyptian names to various deities he describes because he did not know their actual Germanic names. Their priestly class would be the Akkadian speaking and writing Druid class. Tacitus writes:


They choose their kings by birth, their generals for merit. These kings have not unlimited or arbitrary power, and the generals do more by example than by authority. If they are energetic, if they are conspicuous, if they fight in the front, they lead because they are admired. But to reprimand, to imprison, even to flog, is permitted to the priests alone, and that not as a punishment, or at the general's bidding, but, as it were, by the mandate of the god whom they believe to inspire the warrior. 
Mercury is the deity whom they chiefly worship, and on certain days they deem it right to sacrifice to him even with human victims. Hercules and Mars they appease with more lawful offerings. Some of the Suevi also sacrifice to Isis. Of the occasion and origin of this foreign rite I have discovered nothing, but that the image, which is fashioned like a light galley, indicates an imported worship. The Germans, however, do not consider it consistent with the grandeur of celestial beings to confine the gods within walls, or to liken them to the form of any human countenance. They consecrate woods and groves, and they apply the names of deities to the abstraction which they see only in spiritual worship. ...
Augury and divination by lot no people practice more diligently. The use of the lots is simple. A little bough is lopped off a fruit-bearing tree, and cut into small pieces; these are distinguished by certain marks, and thrown carelessly and at random over a white garment. In public questions the priest of the particular state, in private the father of the family, invokes the gods, and, with his eyes towards heaven, takes up each piece three times, and finds in them a meaning according to the mark previously impressed on them. If they prove unfavourable, there is no further consultation that day about the matter; if they sanction it, the confirmation of augury is still required. For they are also familiar with the practice of consulting the notes and the flight of birds. It is peculiar to this people to seek omens and monitions from horses. Kept at the public expense, in these same woods and groves, are white horses, pure from the taint of earthly labour; these are yoked to a sacred car, and accompanied by the priest and the king, or chief of the tribe, who note their neighings and snortings. No species of augury is more trusted, not only by the people and by the nobility, but also by the priests, who regard themselves as the ministers of the gods, and the horses as acquainted with their will.
About minor matters the chiefs deliberate, about the more important the whole tribe. Yet even when the final decision rests with the people, the affair is always thoroughly discussed by the chiefs. They assemble, except in the case of a sudden emergency, on certain fixed days, either at new or at full moon; for this they consider the most auspicious season for the transaction of business. Instead of reckoning by days as we do, they reckon by nights, and in this manner fix both their ordinary and their legal appointments....

Reference

Complete Works of Tacitus. Tacitus. Alfred John Church. William Jackson Brodribb. Lisa Cerrato. edited for Perseus. New York. : Random House, Inc. Random House, Inc. reprinted 1942. . Online at Perseus Classical library at: https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0083%3Achapter%3D9

A great historical outline by History With Hilbert. The following are some Old Frisian/English/Norse/Germanic place names with Akkadian roots:

  1. Hearg - "Shrine" from Akkadian ḪaR.Gi meaning "Liver Energizer" (as opposed to astrological energy). Livers were the source of human emotions and hence a source of magical motion powers on earth.
  2. Aaalburg - "Holy Place" from Akkadian life source god Alu meaning "divine" and Indo-European "berg" meaning place.
  3. Halo - "holy" from Akkadian life source god Alu
Most rune writing in northern Europe would have been done on perishable wood such as shown photo. This sample is from Beren, Norway. Based on letter styles these date to the coexistence era between Druidry and Christianity (700 to 1200 CE). Photo from: https://www.arild-hauge.com/norway.htm

Timeline of Dutch Paganism As Outlined In Video

(April 1, 2023)

Old Norse to English Dictionary by Cleasby & Vigfusson

Online version of the classic Old Norse / Old Icelandic dictionary by Richard Cleasby & Gudbrand Vigfusson, originally published in 1874. It is the largest Old Norse to English dictionary. Containing over 35,000 entries with English definitions. Online at: https://cleasby-vigfusson-dictionary.vercel.app/

English to Old Norse Dictionary At "The Vikings of Bjornstad" 

https://www.vikingsofbjornstad.com/Old_Norse_Dictionary_E2N.shtm#b

Map of storm winds shows how the North Sea funnels storm surges into a narrow channel which amplifies the height of that surge. (Image from:  https://www.air-worldwide.com/Publications/AIR-Currents/2019/Managing-Storm-Surge-Risk-in-Great-Britain--A-Look-Back-at-the-North-Sea-Flood-of-1953-and-Xaver-in-2013/)
One of the earliest storms in modern history which washed away a whole city (Durwich) was the storm called the Grote Mandrenke (Great Drowning) or Saint Marcellus's flood of 1362 CE. It was an intense extratropical cyclone coinciding with a new moon which swept across the British Isles, the Netherlands, northern Germany, and Denmark (including Schleswig/Southern Jutland).
The city of Durwich sat along the coast of southern England.  It was built on a coastal sandbar. Around sunrise on January 15, 1362 Durwich was beset by hurricane force westerly winds in excess of one hundred milers per hour. Many were killed as the city was washed out to sea.
Across the north sea in Frisa another town by the name of Rungholt was also submerged during the same 1362 Great Drowning storm. In this image archaeologists are excavating the remains of its chruch. Picture from: https://www.vice.com/en/article/g5yygw/archaeologists-discover-remnant-of-lost-village-buried-under-the-ocean-for-600-years
The Elbe and Weser River basins are the center of Germanic inland culture. Maps from Wikmedia Commons. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Weser_Einzugsgebiet.png

Atlantis Was Once a Germanic Kingdom On The North Sea Coast Which Was Destroyed Around 600 BCE

(June 5, 2023) North of the Celtic lands were the Germanic lands centered on trading around the North/Baltic sea and Elbe rivers. Consequently, they built cities on the sandbars of the north sea which over history tended to be washed away in great storms. One of these disasters seems to have been the source for the legend of Atlantis. 

Based on its Akkadian etymology "Atlantis" refers to a city on a sand island which emerged out of the ocean.  

This means the "Pillar's of Heracles" were the white cliffs of Dover. The "Strait of Heracles" was the English Channel.  The "continent surrounded by the true ocean" was Britain." The words translated as "Libya" and "Europe" are mistranslated referencing regions different than today's land based classification scheme. Ancient regional classifications were based upon trade and people migration connections. "Europe" in the translation was northern Europe reached along the Rhine river trade route. "Libya" was coastal Europe reached along the Mediterranean and Atlantic coastlines. "Asia" was the Levant and Mesopotamia (fertile crescent).

The island of Atlantis seems to have been the entrance to the Thames just like Druwich in the video. It seems to have been part of a Celtic alliance which raided into Greece, something which they would do later in Italy in when in 387 BCE the Gauls under Brennus sacked the city of Rome, possibly as an alley of Etruria who was in a war with Rome at the time.

This is what Plato says about Atlantis in the book now called Timaeus, Section 24e to 25d  (360 BCE): 


[24e] both for magnitude and for nobleness. For it is related in our records how once upon a time your State (Athens) stayed the course of a mighty host, which, starting from a distant point in the Atlantic ocean, was insolently advancing to attack the whole of Europe, and Asia to boot. For the ocean there was at that time navigable; for in front of the mouth which you Greeks call, as you say, 'the pillars of Heracles,' there lay an island which was larger than Libya and Asia together; and it was possible for the travelers of that time to cross from it to the other islands, and from the islands to the whole of the continent 
[25a] over against them which encompasses that veritable ocean. For all that we have here, lying within the mouth of which we speak, is evidently a haven having a narrow entrance; but that yonder is a real ocean, and the land surrounding it (Britain) may most rightly be called, in the fullest and truest sense, a continent. Now in this island of Atlantis there existed a confederation of kings, of great and marvelous power, which held sway over all the island, and over many other islands also and parts of the continent; and, moreover, 
[25b] of the lands from here within the Straits (English Channel) they ruled over Libya  as far as Egypt, and over Europe (coastline) as far as Tuscany (Etruria). So this host, being all gathered together, made an attempt one time to enslave by one single onslaught both your country and ours and the whole of the territory within the Straits. And then it was, Solon, that the manhood of your State showed itself conspicuous for valor and might in the sight of all the world. For it stood pre-eminent above all 
[25c] in gallantry and all warlike arts, and acting partly as leader of the Greeks, and partly standing alone by itself when deserted by all others, after encountering the deadliest perils, it defeated the invaders and reared a trophy; whereby it saved from slavery such as were not as yet enslaved, and all the rest of us who dwell within the bounds of Heracles it ungrudgingly set free. But at a later time there occurred portentous earthquakes and floods, 
[25d] and one grievous day and night befell them, when the whole body of your warriors was swallowed up by the earth, and the island of Atlantis in like manner was swallowed up by the sea and vanished; wherefore also the ocean at that spot has now become impassable and unsearchable, being blocked up by the shoal mud which the island created as it settled down.”
You have now heard, Socrates, in brief outline, the account given by the elder Critias of what he heard from Solon; 

References


Plato as found in: Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 9 translated by W.R.M. Lamb. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1925. Online at: http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0059.tlg031.perseus-eng1:24e