Hello. Between work mix ups, life style changes and the sort this will be a smaller article. We’d be here for ever if we were to hack and cut at the weeds of all these historical tethers. So, I will aim to simply lay out some meat for hungering bears. We will be mixing some of those in our upcoming bi-annual review. It will be put out on Friday the 13th(spooky, I know). For all you goths out there… rejoice! Your time has come again.
We mentioned in the previous article the need for dividing institutional and formal linguistic theories. Generative Anthropology being our winning horse, here. The goal is to divert our attention away from formal language, itself. This will naturally, and must, entertain key figures and agents within history. These members embolden or limit the articles of our linguistic usage. Even if we are to remember, that in spite of them, all language use is shared language use. This article will speak briefly on that.
Woodard’s end to his apocryphal(in my eyes) book on “Indo-European Sacred Space” outlines as such:
Here are the final remarks of the book:
What’s important here to pursue is his relationship of divinity to expansion of space. The divine, and reverence, as language use itself, must descend upon this world. For the large space of Faustian civilization, this means setting up boundary markers. It is a literal approach and in this case, Woodard makes a compelling argument (if you want to full archeological evidence and comparative analysis do read it). If we turn back the dial on the proverbial sun-clock, here, we’ll find a similar reaction in Sumerian history.
Taken from notes on Kenneth Harl’s lectures on “Origins of Great Ancient Civilizations”, we take note of the onomastics early on[lecture 3]:
From about 2900 B.C., as the city-states began to clash, the need arose to organize soldiers and scribes. At about this time, we begin to encounter in the records men who could claim the early dynastic title ensi or ensi-gar. An ensi who could impose his hegemony over neighboring ensi could claim the title lugar, “great man”.
At one point the Akkadians had conquered Sumer. It was a massive militaristic campaign, yet the people were not won over. Take a look at what happens when a Sumerian lugal recaptures the, now, collective state of peoples:
Ur-nammu and his son, Shulgi (r. 2094-2047 B.C.), carried out additional reforms in the evolution of an effective Near Eastern monarchy.
Ur-nammu issued the first comprehensive law code, intended for use in Sumer, Akkad, and Elam.
Shulgi was responsible for developing the beautiful chancery script of cuneiform tablets and perfecting Sumerian cuneiform into a precise legal and administrative language.
Shulgi also sponsored a literary revival, during his reign, many of the ancient Sumerian myths and tradition were recorded.
Take note on the effects of language after an alien accompaniment of peoples. Immediately, language must be legalized; myth be codified; and ultimately we are to spread amongst our spaces. Inflecting our language upon it once more, this mechanism is the first face of national level institutionalization.
What I had written about previously in Think Tanks was providing linguistic theory as the basis for political action. This exercise is the same. GA has various organizational theories about the Big Man and his importance; here we discuss some important ones. Divinity has been used for literal expansion of spaces, as Woodard shows. What we see from Sumer is a reclamation of the colomna mundi from within. The expansion of space occurs internally where the sovereign is returned, anew yet different. The Big Man has appeared, literally. Charged with the debts of the failed, inappropriate claim of the center—where perhaps his ancestors lands no longer are his peoples—he is rejuvenated and washes away the dirt and grime. Laws gleam. Myths shine. A column is placed in the symbolic realm where literature takes a new hold.
It’s rather easy to think about our modern era. A literal example is the Native tribes of the Americas. Another prescient example is 9-11. While not a devastating tragedy in terms of numbers, it is a defilement of space. Thus the nation, in order to cleanse itself, must establish a column here. Where our language amplifies, effaces and flow through, justifying our occupation of middle eastern territory.
Perhaps we remark on the simplicity of globalism and how that has become touted as Yggdrasil, itself, again. Other symbolic great spaces, even more obtusely, are the internet tribal cults we currently find ourselves in. The internet becomes the world-pole itself. We enter through it, sharking up idioms and verbiages by our selected lugals. We take their language, find a resting point and, like prayer, offer up our hopes; repeating their chosen words (that brought us passage into this giant prairie of words and images); having faith it will convert others the same.
As I said, this will be a short article but do think on it. What columns do you visit? Where do you expand your scene, and for whom does it expand?
Bela Lugal-si’s dead…