Ancient Near East Indus Script bull-man dhangra 'bull'

with g 'mace' is ro, hkur blacksmith. 240 Nahal

Mishmar maceheads signify guild of blacksmiths
Out of 442 artifacts discovered in Nahal Mishmar, 240 are maceheads. These should signify the
major preoccupation of the people who left the artifacts in Nahal Mishmar. This is suggested
because, a mace held in a person's hand on ancient sculptural friezes signifies his or her
profession -- smithy.
I posit that the maceheads are a signature tune of a guild of blacksmiths of the Bronze Age,
giving meaning to the phrase: harosheth hagoyim 'smithy of nations'. (Book of Judges 5:10).
In RV 3.53.12, Rishi Visvamitra states that this mantra (brahma) shall protect the
people: visvamitrasya rakshati brahmedam Bhratam Janam.

Translation: 3.053.12 I have made Indra glorified by these two, heaven and earth, and this prayer
of Vis'va_mitra protects the people (janam) of Bharata. [Made Indra glorified: indram
atus.t.avam-- the verb is the third preterite of the casual, I have caused to be praised; it may
mean: I praise Indra, abiding between heaven and earth, i.e. in the firmament].
See: http://bharatkalyan97.blogspot.in/2015/11/tracing-roots-of-bharatam-janamfrom.html Rishi http://bharatkalyan97.blogspot.in/2015/08/bharatam-janam-of-rigveda-rv-353mean.html
The word Bharata in the expression of identification by Visvamitra is derived from the
metalwork lexis of Prakritam: bhrata a factitious alloy of copper, pewter, tin; baran,
bharat mixed alloys (5 copper, 4 zinc and 1 tin). Thus, the expression Bhratam Janam can be
described semantically as metalcaster folk, thus firmly establishing the identity of the people of
India, that is Bharat and the spoken form of their language ca. 3500 BCE.
This monograph tests the hypothesis to demonstrate that a person holding a mace in ancient
Bronze Age signifies a blacksmith, a metalworker.

British Museum number103225 Baked clay plaque showing a bull-man holding a post.
Old Babylonian 2000BC-1600BCE Length: 12.8 centimetres Width: 7 centimetres Barcelona
2002 cat.181, p.212 BM Return 1911 p. 66

On this terracotta plaque, the mace is a phonetic determinant of the bovine (bull) ligatured to the
body of the person holding the mace. The person signified is: dhangar blacksmith
(Maithili) hangra bull. Rebus: hangar blacksmith.
Mth. hkur blacksmith (CDIAL 5488) N. ro term of contempt for
a blacksmith "... head and torso of a human but the horns, lower body and legs of a bull...Baked
clay plaques like this were mass-produced using moulds in southern Mesopotamia from the
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second millennium BCE. British Museum. WCO2652. Bull-manTerracotta plaque. Bull-man

holding a post. Mesopotamia, ca. 2000-1600 BCE."
Terracotta. This plaque depicts a creature with the head and torso of a human but the horns,
lower body and legs of a bull. Though similar figures are depicted earlier in Iran, they are first
seen in Mesopotamian art around 2500 BC, most commonly on cylinder seals, and are associated
with the sun-god Shamash. The bull-man was usually shown in profile, with a single visible horn
projecting forward. However, here he is depicted in a less common form; his whole body above
the waist, shown in frontal view, shows that he was intended to be double-horned. He may be
supporting a divine emblem and thus acting as a protective deity.
Old Babylonian, about 2000-1600 BCE From Mesopotamia Length: 12.8 cm Width: 7cm ME
103225 Room 56: Mesopotamia Briish Museum
Baked clay plaques like this were mass-produced using moulds in southern Mesopotamia from
the second millennium BCE. While many show informal scenes and reflect the private face of
life, this example clearly has magical or religious significance.
Hieroglyph carried on a flagpost by the blacksmith (bull ligatured man: Dhangar 'bull' Rebus:
blacksmith')

Ashurnasirpal II succeeded his father, TukultiNinurta II, in 883 BCE carries a mace/

Shalmaneser III (859824 BCE), son of

Ashurbanipal II carries a mace

British
Museum. Stele of Ashurnasirpal II. Neo-Assyrian, 883-859 BCE

Assyrian reliefs show persons with maces. Remarks about Some Assyrian Reliefs E.
Porada Anatolian Studies

Vol. 33, Special Number in Honour of the Seventy-Fifth Birthday of Dr. Richard Barnett (1983),
pp. 15-18

Unprovenienced. Person with a mace.

Bactria
Margiana. Bronze macehead with snake hieroglyph

Bronze knobbed mace - Balkan Peninsula, Macedonia. Near East Bronze age: 3,300 - 1,200 BC.
4 cm tall x 6.5 cm wide.

laster cast of a Neo-Hittite relief; soldier or guardsman walking right with mace, long sword and
spear; painted black in imitation of original basalt; mounted in wooden frame. Culture/period:
Neo-Hittite - 10thC BCE
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British Museum.
An Assyrian soldier waving a mace escorts four prisoners, who carry their possessions in sacks
over their shoulders. Their clothes and their turbans, rising to a slight point which flops
backwards, are typical of the area; people from the Biblical kingdom of Israel, shown on other
sculptures, wear the same dress, gypsum wall panel relief, South West Palace, Nimrud, Kalhu
Iraq, neo-assyrian, 730BC-727BCE

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upper part of the stele of Hammurabi's code of laws. Does

he carry a mace?

tela of Adad-Nirari III carries a mace (809-782 BCE) Tell

El-Rimah

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Maceheads. Votive?

Anzu depicted on a stone macehead from the mid-third

millennium BCE

Mace Ti kulti Ninurta Louvre AO 2152.

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The person accompanying Tukulti Ninurta I who kneels in front of the fire-altar carries a mace.
The entire frame is flanked by two safflowers.
In the orthographic tradition of Ancient Near East, a professional is signified by the hieroglyph
he or she carries. Thus, a coppersmith, seafaring merchant carries a goat proclaiming that he
works with mlekh 'goat' rebus: milakkhu 'copper' (See cylinder seal with cuneiform Akkadian of
Shu-ilishu)
Shu-ilishu cylinder seal of eme-bal, interpreter. Akkadian. Cylinder seal Impression. Inscription
records that it belongs to Su-ilisu, Meluhha interpreter, i.e., translator of the Meluhhan
language (EME.BAL.ME.LUH.HA.KI) The Meluhhan being introduced carries an goat on his
arm. Musee du Louvre. Ao 22 310, Collection De Clercq 3rd millennium BCE. The Meluhhan is
accompanied by a lady carrying a kamaalu. The goat on the trader's hand is a phonetic
determinant -- that he is Meluhha. This is decrypted based on the word for the goat: mlekh 'goat'
(Brahui); mr..eka 'goat' (Telugu) Rebus: mleccha'copper' (Samskritam); milakkhu 'copper' (Pali)
Thus the sea-faring merchant carrying the goat is a copper (and tin) trader from Meluhha. The jar
carried by the accompanying person is a liquid measure:ranku 'liquid measure' Rebus: ranku 'tin'.
A hieroglyph used to denote ranku may be seen on the two pure tin ingots found in a shipwreck
in Haifa. That Pali uses the term milakkhu is significant (cf. Uttardhyayana Stra 10.16) and
reinforces the concordance between mleccha and milakkhu (a pronunciation variant) and
links the language with meluhha as a reference to a language in Mesopotamian texts and in the
cylinder seal of Shu-ilishu. [Possehl, Gregory, 2006, Shu-ilishus cylinder seal, Expedition,
Vol. 48, No. 1http://www.penn.museum/documents/publications/expedition/PDFs/481/What%20in%20the%20World.pdf] This seal shows a sea-faring Meluhha merchant who
needed a translator to translate meluhha speech into Akkadian. The translators name was Shuilishu as recorded in cuneiform script on the seal. This evidence rules out Akkadian as the Indus
or Meluhha language and justifies the search for the proto-Indian speech from the region of the
Sarasvati river basin which accounts for 80% (about 2000) archaeological sites of the
civilization, including sites which have yielded inscribed objects such as Lothal, Dwaraka,
Kanmer, Dholavira, Surkotada, Kalibangan, Farmana, Bhirrana, Kunal, Banawali, Chandigarh,
Rupar, Rakhigarhi. The language-speakers in this basin are likely to have retained cultural
memories of Indus language which can be gleaned from the semantic clusters of glosses of the
ancient versions of their current lingua francaavailable in comparative lexicons and nighanus. http://bharatkalyan97.blogspot.in/2015/04/ox-hide-ingots-of-tin-and-one-third.html

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Gods, caves, and scholars: Chalcolithic Cult and Metallurgy in the Judean Desert by Yuval
Goren Near Eastern Archaeology Vol. 77, No. 4 (December 2014), pp. 260-266Published
by: The American Schools of Oriental
Research http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5615/neareastarch.77.4.0260
240 maceheads of Nahal Mishmar are indicative of the widely prevalent name for a blacksmith
of the Harosheth Hagoyim. If taken in a procession on flagposts, these would have recollected
the memories of the metalsmiths of yore and paying respects to the memories of ancestors.
Hieroglyph: g m. club, mace (Kashmiri) Rebus: K. angur (dat. garas) m. fool ;
P. agar m. stupid man ; N. ro term of contempt for a blacksmith , re large and
lazy ; A.aur living alone without wife or children ; H. gar, gr m. starveling
.N. igar contemptuous term for an inhabitant of the Tarai ; B. igar vile ; Or. igara
rogue , r wicked ; H. igar m. rogue ; M. gar m. boy .(CDIAL 5524)
I ng, s.m. (2nd) A club, a stick, a bludgeon. Pl. ngnah. ng laka,
s.f. (6th) The name of a bird with a club-tail. Sing. and Pl. See ngora, s.f.
(6th) A small walking- stick, a small club. Sing. and Pl. (The dimin. of the above). (Pashto)
g m. a club, mace (Gr.Gr. 1); a blow with a stick or cudgel (iv. 13); a
walking-stick. Cf. guvu. -- dini -- &below; m. pl. inf. to give clubs; to give a
drubbing, to flog a person as a punishment. (Kashmiri) akka2 stick . 2. *aga -- 1. [Cf.
other variants for stick : aka -- 3, *ikara -- , *higa -- 1, *ikka -- 1 (*ika -- )]1.
S. aku m. stick put up to keep a door shut , akaru stick, straw ; P. akk m. straw
, akkr m. bit (of anything) ; N. klo stalk, stem .2. Pk. ag -- f. stick ; A. thick
stick ; B. pole for hanging things on ; Or. ga stick ; H. g f. club ( P. g f.
stick ; K. g m. club, mace ); G. g f., g,agor m., ru n. stick ; M. agar n. short
thick stick , g f. small branch , g f.Addenda: *akka -- 2. 2. *aga - 1: WPah.kg. g f. (obl. -- a) stick , ag m. stalk (of a plant) ; -- poss. kg.
(kc.) agr m. axe , poet. agru m., re f.; J. gr m. small weapon like axe ,
P. agor f. small staff or club (Him.I 84).(CDIAL 6520)
Allograph Hieroglyph: hagaru, higaru m. lean emaciated beast(Sindhi)
Rebus: dhangar blacksmith (Maithili) hangra bull. Rebus: hangar blacksmith.

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Mth. hkur blacksmith (CDIAL 5488) N. ro term of contempt for

a blacksmith S. hagaru m. lean emaciated beast ; L. (Shahpur) hagg small weak ox
(CDIAL 5324)

Plaque de pierre en relief illustrant une scne de banquet, les prparatifs et les divertissements,
Khafajeh, poque dynastique archaque II III A (ca. 2700 2600 av. J.-C.), 20,4 x 20 x 4,2 cm.
"Plaques such as this were part of a door-locking system for important buildings. The plaque was
embedded in the doorjamb and a peg, inserted into the central perforation, was used to hold a
hook or cord that secured the door and was covered with clay impressed by one or more
seals." https://oi.uchicago.edu/collections/highlights/highlights-collection-mesopotamia The
bottom register shows a harp player. Rightmost is a person perhaps carrying a mace. The harp is
a hieroglyph: tambura 'harp'; rebus: tambra 'copper'.The mace carrying person is a blacksmith;
rebus reading: g m. club, mace (Kashmiri) Rebus: K. angur (dat. garas) m. fool ;
P. agar m. stupid man ; N. ro term of contempt for a blacksmith , re large and
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lazy ; A.aur living alone without wife or children ; H. gar, gr m. starveling

.N. igar contemptuous term for an inhabitant of the Tarai ; B. igar vile ; Or. igara
rogue , r wicked ; H. igar m. rogue ; M. gar m. boy .(CDIAL 5524)

Three-faced person with

armlets, bracelets seated on a stool with bovine legs. Material: tan steatite Dimensions: 2.65 x
2.7 cm, 0.83 to 0.86 thickness Mohenjo-daro, DK 12050
kd 'bunch of twigs' (Sanskrit) Rebus: kuhi 'smelter furnace' (Santali) [p= 300,1] f. a
bunch of twigs , bunch (v.l. /) AV. v , 19 , 12 Kaus3.ccord. to Kaus3. , Sch. = ,
"Christ's thorn".(Monier-Williams)
Hieroglyph: kamaha penance (Pkt.) Rebus 1: kampaa mint (Ma.) kamaa = portable
furnace for melting precious metals (Te.);Rebus 2: kaa fire-altar'
(Santali); kan copper (Ta.)
Hieroglyph: kar n. pl. wristlets, bangles (Gujarati); kara 'hand' (Rigveda) Rebus: khAr
'blacksmith' (Kashmiri)
The bunch of twigs = ku_di_, ku_t.i_ (Skt.lex.) ku_di_ (also written as ku_t.i_ in manuscripts)
occurs in the Atharvaveda (AV 5.19.12) and Kausika Su_tra (Bloomsfields ed.n, xliv. cf.
Bloomsfield, American Journal of Philology, 11, 355; 12,416; Roth, Festgruss an Bohtlingk,98)
denotes it as a twig. This is identified as that of Badari_, the jujube tied to the body of the dead to

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efface their traces. (See Vedic Index, I, p. 177).[Note the twig adoring the head-dress of a horned,
standing person]
Islamabad Museum, NMP 50.296 Mackay 1938: 335, pl. LXXXVII, 222

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Procession of Elamite warriors, Susa, Iran, Elamit c. 1150 BCE Bronze relief, Louvre, Paris

Technical description

Frise d'un panneau de mosaque

Vers 2500 - 2400 avant J.-C.
Mari, temple d'Ishtar

Coquille, schiste
Fouilles Parrot, 1934 - 1936
AO 19820

Near Eastern Antiquities

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Richelieu wing
Ground floor
Ancient Mesopotamia
Room 1 b
Vitrine 7 : Epoque des dynasties archaques de Sumer, vers 2900 - 2340 avant J.-C. Antiquits
de Mari (Moyen-Euphrate)

Life of Mari, Frise d'un panneau de mosaque.

A person is a standard bearer of a banner

holding aloft the one-horned young bull which is the signature glyph of Indus writing. The
banner is comparable to the banner shown on two Mohenjo-daro tablets.
Frieze of a mosaic panel Circa 2500-2400 BCE Temple of Ishtar, Mari (Tell Hariri), Syria
Shell and shale Andr Parrot excavations, 1934-36 AO 19820
These inlaid mosaics, composed of figures carved in mother-of-pearl, against a background of
small blocks of lapis lazuli or pink limestone, set in bitumen, are among the most original and
attractive examples of Mesopotamian art. It was at Mari that a large number of these mosaic
pieces were discovered. Here they depict a victory scene: soldiers lead defeated enemy captives,
naked and in chains, before four dignitaries....The leader appears to be a shaven-headed figure:
stripped to the waist and wearing kaunakes, he carries a standard showing a bull standing on a
pedestal. The lower register, on the right, features traces of a chariot drawn by onagers, a type of
wild ass.
Bibliography

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Contenau G., Manuel d'archologie orientale depuis les origines jusqu' Alexandre : les
dcouvertes archologiques de 1930 1939, IV, Paris : Picard, 1947, pp. 2049-2051, fig. 1138
Parrot A., Les fouilles de Mari, premire campagne (hiver 1933-1934), Extr. de : Syria, 16, 1935,
paris : P. Geuthner, pp. 132-137, pl. XXVIII
Parrot A., Mission archologique de Mari : vol. I : le temple d'Ishtar, Bibliothque archologique
et historique, LXV, Paris : Institut franais d'archologie du Proche-Orient, 1956, pp. 136-155,
pls. LVI-LVII Author: Iselin Claire
http://www.louvre.fr/en/oeuvre-notices/frieze-mosaic-panel
See:
http://bharatkalyan97.blogspot.in/2013/06/ancient-near-east-bronze-age-legacy_6.html Ancient
Near East bronze-age legacy: Processions depicted on Narmer palette, Indus writing denote
artisan guilds
21 plates of agor 'mace, club' including maceheads of 9 millennia upto the 1st millennium.
Images selected and compiled by Michael Serbane in his doctoral thesis under the supervision of
Prof. Benjamin Sass of Tel Aviv University on The Mace in Israel and the Ancient Near East
from the Ninth millennium to the First Typology and chronology, technology, military and
ceremonial use, regional interconnections (2009). Linked and excerpts circulated with blogpost:
http://bharatkalyan97.blogspot.in/2016/04/processions-of-hieroglyphs-are_12.html

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This figure presented by Dr. Michael Serbane evokes the imagery of a Soma Yaga Yupa with a
caSAla.

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The figure on the top row with a safflower ligature is significant.

I siggest that the safflower signified all over Ancient Near East and the
Levant, [ kara ] f (See ) Safflower: also its seed. Rebus: karaa 'hard alloy' [of
arka 'copper']. Rebus: fire-god: @B27990. #16671. Remo <karandi>E155 {N} ``^fire^god''.(Munda).

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If carried on processions, these standards or flagposts are comparable to the procession shown on
two Mohenjo-daro tablets as proclamations of metallurgical competence.

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S.Kalyanaraman
Sarasvati Research Center
April 13, 2016

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