billgames39
The Sumerians supposedly called themselves the “Black-headed people”. And all over the internet this is being misconstrued as referring to hair or what it means is being avoided because nobody wants to deal with the implications. It cannot possibly be hair. And I shall show why.
This is indeed an odd and disingenuous construction. It seems inconsistent with (albeit) our modern perception that the main feature, hair in this argument, would then in fact make them rightfully call themselves the “dark haired” people rather than “black headed” people unless of course they suffered from black heads--a little levity there.
Saying it is just a modern perception proves nothing if we don’t find other such odd constructions but the actual words don’t support it being an odd Sumerian construction either but a translation that is in error. There are a number of Old Babylonian words for hair so it isn’t that they lacked terms for hair why they would refer to the head alone.
We should refer here to the first Sumerians and later Sumerians, perhaps the period of the earliest pottery. Miscegenation seems to have ocurred in ancient Sumeria and the Sumerians of later periods acknowledged perhaps a dark ancestry.
The Sumerians some say liked shaving their heads to avoid lice and so wore wigs. Yet we see shaven headed Sumerian sculpture. Hair is not that important to have except as wigs. So in order to prove that “black-headed” refers solely to brunettes, a dark “haired people”, it begs the question why we see Sumerians with shaved heads and no references or emphasis in texts of hair shaving being somehow “bad” or dark hair being a significant trait, praised, well regarded etc. among them, mortals, if hair in fact defined them as mankind, human. Animals have hair, fur, after all--it's not unique.
Dark hair is never emphasized as being unique contrasted against foreign peoples who are not dark haired—and, given the region of Irag, Turkey, and Iran today, and the assumptions of permanent whiteness there now and in ancient times, “dark hair” being something unique there is impossible, it shouldn’t stand out at all if it was the substance of their persons. Substance here is the body itself, the culture–since it defines who they are—if the emphasis is not there in other texts, why is this emphasis “head” used to describe their whole culture or their persons as a group, why would it matter to them to be described as “black-headed” with the current presumption that it means dark haired?
Their darkness had to have regional significance if they were in contact with a different group or if this term is a memory of ancestors who were in fact blacks of some sort, the first Sumerians.
Psychologically a people that is dark haired, so obsessed with coiffure, beards, wigs etc. to name their ancestor thus, wouldn’t leave the hair part out of a description like their heads, and this is ironic given the Assyrians fancy hairstyling later…it’s not logical, it doesn’t make sense, this translation is an avoidance fear of the word “person” instead of “head” as the right choice. Here is the evidence.
We have in the dictionary this: saĝgiga [HUMANKIND] (4x: Old Babylonian) wr. saĝ-gig2-ga “humankind” Akk. şalmat qaqqadi …how is this related to the standard use of the phrase “black-headed”?
Here we have:
saĝ [HEAD] (3582x: ED IIIa, ED IIIb, Old Akkadian, Lagash II, Ur III, Early Old Babylonian, Old Babylonian, unknown) wr. saĝ “head; person; capital” Akk. qaqqadu; rēšu
Is the semi-colon after the first there to suggest that each is a distinct term; they’re not saying the head is {head-person-capital} all as one compound word, therefore a choice here is not arbitrary, no, a sensible choice has to be made for which of the three is most meaningful, is going to be applied to the next part which is:
giggi [BLACK] (941x: ED IIIa, Ur III, Early Old Babylonian, Old Babylonian, 1st millennium) wr. giggi; gi6-gi6 “(to be) black” Akk. şalmu
Which makes more sense saying black person or black headed? I don’t like to do an arm-chair psychoanalysis of individuals I don’t know but a recent study of white children, shown images of whiteness to gradations of brown to black, consistently more often than not chose the whitest for all things good and the darkest for dumb, ugly, bad…is picking “head” some knee jerk translator’s reaction against the unconscious implications of “person”/ “to be black persons–mankind” which seems like the correct translation to me but let me emphasize the words again, look carefully, further proofs will follow.
As to heads with hair we have sikipa [HEAD-HAIR] (4x: Old Babylonian) wr. siki-pa “head hair” but I don’t know where the Sumerian is, if this is it or not, as a loan word or a translation so I’m not sure how this relates. I wish Sumerian scholars, even a black Sumerian scholar, would write on this phrase honestly and expose the falsity of the translation. I admit I’m not a Sumerian scholar and this may seem speculative but it is based on the Sumerian dictionary online— are these irrefutable facts?
What other types of phrases appear so similar to this one in Sumerian texts, that is, a phrase that disregards particulars, as this does skin, skull, hair and eyes while it absurdly separates one part of the anatomy, in this case, the head from the hair and the skin etc., to offer a vague description of appearance, vital here supposedly in terms of asserting Sumerian differences, that is their calling themselves “black-headed”--what does that mean? Why should it matter if, again, given the region, dark hair is not that significant a trait.
What could it mean: black hair, black scalp, black scarves, black hats? And yet this is separated from the rest of the body, it’s anomalous and feels like translation noise or ambiguity which smells of racism. Is there any wiggle room on this translation to either hair or to skin? None that I can see. What are the words for hair and skin, and types of skin if any? The PSD offer words for skin, and people, even brown, red, and yet these are not used to describe a tribe, a family, a unique group, such as “mountain people”, “plains people” etc with dark hair. What other peoples in history now or then described themselves so uniquely, significantly as black, and yet so vaguely?
I would think a fair and honest explanation of this one phrase would help provide a context for better informed debate or settle the matter.
“dumusaĝ [FIRST-BORN] (66x: ED IIIb, Lagash II, Ur III, Old Babylonian) wr. dumu-saĝ “first-born”….It seems also that head is used to mean first in a series….”dubsaĝ [BEFORE] (76x: Old Akkadian, Ur III, Old Babylonian) wr. dub-saĝ “first; before” Akk. mahrû; qudmu”
saĝgiga [HUMANKIND] (4x: Old Babylonian) wr. saĝ-gig2-ga “humankind” Akk. şalmat qaqqadi
If I’m not mistaken, if I’m not misunderstanding the grammatical complexity here “sag” then isn’t just “head” meaning skull, face etc, the body part alone but can be “first”, first humankind? You see “sag” being used this way in other compound uses. Notice in the standard translation they don’t relate this to the word giggi…I don’t understand if salmat is related to salmu though it appears it might be or giggi relates to giga…from my limited understanding, I suspect it does mean "black mankind".
giggi [BLACK] (941x: ED IIIa, Ur III, Early Old Babylonian, Old Babylonian, 1st millennium) wr. giggi; gi6-gi6 “(to be) black” Akk. Şalmu
Nevertheless to say “black-headed people” is not conclusive or necessary because there are other choices, the translator can select one of three items, “head”; “person”; “capital”; given those three choices and a fourth if “head” (capital, chief) as “sag” can also mean first, so it is foolish for people to think or assume so confidently that it means a description of “dark haired” peoples, and thus “whites”, and this assumption is all over the internet now, I’m sure even right here; as I said there are words for hair at least in the Sumerian Dictionary in terms of Sumerian versions in Akkadian and Babylonian.
To be black headed, what does black headed mean…again, when there are three choices given for Sag: head 3582x: ED IIIa, ED IIIb, Old Akkadian, Lagash II, Ur III, Early Old Babylonian, Old Babylonian, unknown) wr. saĝ “head; person; capital” Akk. qaqqadu; rēšu: head;person;capital…is the choice of head over the others a substitute for “person”?
Think about it. It’s not even clear if head in the accepted translation means chief or it means the skull, or “first blacks”–it’s not clear what usage of “head” is being put forward here by the traditional accepted false translation.
Are we talking about the head of the line, the head of mankind etc. so to dismiss afrocentric concerns of faulty translation in this, and other cases, is not warranted…and which makes more logical sense, person or head—why would the ancients leave out the rest of their body and why is it that there is no emphasis on hair, beards etc as in phrases such as “the dark haired” ones, the “hairy ones”, “black hairs”, the “bearded fathers” etc., these would be appropriate if the people recognized hair as their distinctive mark, brown or black…it’s dubious then that it means hair of any kind given the choices above…I think the mainstream scholars will have to explain what they think “head” itself designates to justify such a vague choice given the other two and more correct choice of “person”. The choice of first is even more profoundly threatening. They must give and answer with a criteria for this choice which seems to allow all sorts of people to assume it mean “dark haired”.
Mainstream white scholars already recognize that “sag” doesn’t mean “head and hair”… “Figurative Language in the Near East” edited by Mindlin, Geller, Wansbrough…this is from an article with the title “A Riding Tooth”…
The words for head, Sumerian saĝ, Akkadian qaqqadum and rēšum, are extremely productive in the metaphoric (catachrestic) creation of new terms. I only refer to the use of ‘head’ for ‘slave’ as in Latin, to saĝ-níĝ-GA-ra=rēš makkūrim for the ‘available capital accounted for’ on account tablets which at least once is referred to in an Old Babylonian letter (in the accusative) as qaqqadī kaspim ‘the heads of (the) silver’.8 Related to this is Sumerian dub—saĝ ‘tablet head’ for the beginning of a cuneiform tablet9, and, once more transferred, used for ‘beginning’ in general.10 The beginning of a period may be called its ‘head’ as in kaqqad ebūrim11, ‘beginning of the harvest time’. In yet another letter we find the head in the adverbial accusative rēšam, ‘in the beginning’.12
An area abounding in metaphoric terminology is the scholarly language of extispicy. On a sheep’s liver we find such structures as a city (or palace) gate with its door jambs
The first Sumerians were some sort of people that looked black or were dark skinned to the point where they percieved a difference with others.
This is indeed an odd and disingenuous construction. It seems inconsistent with (albeit) our modern perception that the main feature, hair in this argument, would then in fact make them rightfully call themselves the “dark haired” people rather than “black headed” people unless of course they suffered from black heads--a little levity there.
Saying it is just a modern perception proves nothing if we don’t find other such odd constructions but the actual words don’t support it being an odd Sumerian construction either but a translation that is in error. There are a number of Old Babylonian words for hair so it isn’t that they lacked terms for hair why they would refer to the head alone.
We should refer here to the first Sumerians and later Sumerians, perhaps the period of the earliest pottery. Miscegenation seems to have ocurred in ancient Sumeria and the Sumerians of later periods acknowledged perhaps a dark ancestry.
The Sumerians some say liked shaving their heads to avoid lice and so wore wigs. Yet we see shaven headed Sumerian sculpture. Hair is not that important to have except as wigs. So in order to prove that “black-headed” refers solely to brunettes, a dark “haired people”, it begs the question why we see Sumerians with shaved heads and no references or emphasis in texts of hair shaving being somehow “bad” or dark hair being a significant trait, praised, well regarded etc. among them, mortals, if hair in fact defined them as mankind, human. Animals have hair, fur, after all--it's not unique.
Dark hair is never emphasized as being unique contrasted against foreign peoples who are not dark haired—and, given the region of Irag, Turkey, and Iran today, and the assumptions of permanent whiteness there now and in ancient times, “dark hair” being something unique there is impossible, it shouldn’t stand out at all if it was the substance of their persons. Substance here is the body itself, the culture–since it defines who they are—if the emphasis is not there in other texts, why is this emphasis “head” used to describe their whole culture or their persons as a group, why would it matter to them to be described as “black-headed” with the current presumption that it means dark haired?
Their darkness had to have regional significance if they were in contact with a different group or if this term is a memory of ancestors who were in fact blacks of some sort, the first Sumerians.
Psychologically a people that is dark haired, so obsessed with coiffure, beards, wigs etc. to name their ancestor thus, wouldn’t leave the hair part out of a description like their heads, and this is ironic given the Assyrians fancy hairstyling later…it’s not logical, it doesn’t make sense, this translation is an avoidance fear of the word “person” instead of “head” as the right choice. Here is the evidence.
We have in the dictionary this: saĝgiga [HUMANKIND] (4x: Old Babylonian) wr. saĝ-gig2-ga “humankind” Akk. şalmat qaqqadi …how is this related to the standard use of the phrase “black-headed”?
Here we have:
saĝ [HEAD] (3582x: ED IIIa, ED IIIb, Old Akkadian, Lagash II, Ur III, Early Old Babylonian, Old Babylonian, unknown) wr. saĝ “head; person; capital” Akk. qaqqadu; rēšu
Is the semi-colon after the first there to suggest that each is a distinct term; they’re not saying the head is {head-person-capital} all as one compound word, therefore a choice here is not arbitrary, no, a sensible choice has to be made for which of the three is most meaningful, is going to be applied to the next part which is:
giggi [BLACK] (941x: ED IIIa, Ur III, Early Old Babylonian, Old Babylonian, 1st millennium) wr. giggi; gi6-gi6 “(to be) black” Akk. şalmu
Which makes more sense saying black person or black headed? I don’t like to do an arm-chair psychoanalysis of individuals I don’t know but a recent study of white children, shown images of whiteness to gradations of brown to black, consistently more often than not chose the whitest for all things good and the darkest for dumb, ugly, bad…is picking “head” some knee jerk translator’s reaction against the unconscious implications of “person”/ “to be black persons–mankind” which seems like the correct translation to me but let me emphasize the words again, look carefully, further proofs will follow.
As to heads with hair we have sikipa [HEAD-HAIR] (4x: Old Babylonian) wr. siki-pa “head hair” but I don’t know where the Sumerian is, if this is it or not, as a loan word or a translation so I’m not sure how this relates. I wish Sumerian scholars, even a black Sumerian scholar, would write on this phrase honestly and expose the falsity of the translation. I admit I’m not a Sumerian scholar and this may seem speculative but it is based on the Sumerian dictionary online— are these irrefutable facts?
What other types of phrases appear so similar to this one in Sumerian texts, that is, a phrase that disregards particulars, as this does skin, skull, hair and eyes while it absurdly separates one part of the anatomy, in this case, the head from the hair and the skin etc., to offer a vague description of appearance, vital here supposedly in terms of asserting Sumerian differences, that is their calling themselves “black-headed”--what does that mean? Why should it matter if, again, given the region, dark hair is not that significant a trait.
What could it mean: black hair, black scalp, black scarves, black hats? And yet this is separated from the rest of the body, it’s anomalous and feels like translation noise or ambiguity which smells of racism. Is there any wiggle room on this translation to either hair or to skin? None that I can see. What are the words for hair and skin, and types of skin if any? The PSD offer words for skin, and people, even brown, red, and yet these are not used to describe a tribe, a family, a unique group, such as “mountain people”, “plains people” etc with dark hair. What other peoples in history now or then described themselves so uniquely, significantly as black, and yet so vaguely?
I would think a fair and honest explanation of this one phrase would help provide a context for better informed debate or settle the matter.
“dumusaĝ [FIRST-BORN] (66x: ED IIIb, Lagash II, Ur III, Old Babylonian) wr. dumu-saĝ “first-born”….It seems also that head is used to mean first in a series….”dubsaĝ [BEFORE] (76x: Old Akkadian, Ur III, Old Babylonian) wr. dub-saĝ “first; before” Akk. mahrû; qudmu”
saĝgiga [HUMANKIND] (4x: Old Babylonian) wr. saĝ-gig2-ga “humankind” Akk. şalmat qaqqadi
If I’m not mistaken, if I’m not misunderstanding the grammatical complexity here “sag” then isn’t just “head” meaning skull, face etc, the body part alone but can be “first”, first humankind? You see “sag” being used this way in other compound uses. Notice in the standard translation they don’t relate this to the word giggi…I don’t understand if salmat is related to salmu though it appears it might be or giggi relates to giga…from my limited understanding, I suspect it does mean "black mankind".
giggi [BLACK] (941x: ED IIIa, Ur III, Early Old Babylonian, Old Babylonian, 1st millennium) wr. giggi; gi6-gi6 “(to be) black” Akk. Şalmu
Nevertheless to say “black-headed people” is not conclusive or necessary because there are other choices, the translator can select one of three items, “head”; “person”; “capital”; given those three choices and a fourth if “head” (capital, chief) as “sag” can also mean first, so it is foolish for people to think or assume so confidently that it means a description of “dark haired” peoples, and thus “whites”, and this assumption is all over the internet now, I’m sure even right here; as I said there are words for hair at least in the Sumerian Dictionary in terms of Sumerian versions in Akkadian and Babylonian.
To be black headed, what does black headed mean…again, when there are three choices given for Sag: head 3582x: ED IIIa, ED IIIb, Old Akkadian, Lagash II, Ur III, Early Old Babylonian, Old Babylonian, unknown) wr. saĝ “head; person; capital” Akk. qaqqadu; rēšu: head;person;capital…is the choice of head over the others a substitute for “person”?
Think about it. It’s not even clear if head in the accepted translation means chief or it means the skull, or “first blacks”–it’s not clear what usage of “head” is being put forward here by the traditional accepted false translation.
Are we talking about the head of the line, the head of mankind etc. so to dismiss afrocentric concerns of faulty translation in this, and other cases, is not warranted…and which makes more logical sense, person or head—why would the ancients leave out the rest of their body and why is it that there is no emphasis on hair, beards etc as in phrases such as “the dark haired” ones, the “hairy ones”, “black hairs”, the “bearded fathers” etc., these would be appropriate if the people recognized hair as their distinctive mark, brown or black…it’s dubious then that it means hair of any kind given the choices above…I think the mainstream scholars will have to explain what they think “head” itself designates to justify such a vague choice given the other two and more correct choice of “person”. The choice of first is even more profoundly threatening. They must give and answer with a criteria for this choice which seems to allow all sorts of people to assume it mean “dark haired”.
Mainstream white scholars already recognize that “sag” doesn’t mean “head and hair”… “Figurative Language in the Near East” edited by Mindlin, Geller, Wansbrough…this is from an article with the title “A Riding Tooth”…
The words for head, Sumerian saĝ, Akkadian qaqqadum and rēšum, are extremely productive in the metaphoric (catachrestic) creation of new terms. I only refer to the use of ‘head’ for ‘slave’ as in Latin, to saĝ-níĝ-GA-ra=rēš makkūrim for the ‘available capital accounted for’ on account tablets which at least once is referred to in an Old Babylonian letter (in the accusative) as qaqqadī kaspim ‘the heads of (the) silver’.8 Related to this is Sumerian dub—saĝ ‘tablet head’ for the beginning of a cuneiform tablet9, and, once more transferred, used for ‘beginning’ in general.10 The beginning of a period may be called its ‘head’ as in kaqqad ebūrim11, ‘beginning of the harvest time’. In yet another letter we find the head in the adverbial accusative rēšam, ‘in the beginning’.12
An area abounding in metaphoric terminology is the scholarly language of extispicy. On a sheep’s liver we find such structures as a city (or palace) gate with its door jambs
The first Sumerians were some sort of people that looked black or were dark skinned to the point where they percieved a difference with others.
