Eduard Selleslagh-Suykens

Después de haber recibido unos comentarios útiles y re-examinando mi artículo “Is Iberian ‘iunśtiŕ’ an Etruscan deity? Another trace of an Iberian-Aegean connection?”, lo he corregido y revisado (también añadiendo cosas). Aquí les presento la versión del 26.06.2015. También la cambié en www.academia.edu.

Is Iberian ‘iunśtiŕ’ an Etruscan deity? Another trace of an Iberian-Aegean connection?

1.  Introduction

The almost iconic Iberian word ‘iunśtiŕ’ has become something of a symbol of the  impenetrable character of the ancient Iberian language. It has often been suggested that ‘iunstir’ (also spelled with varying combinations of the two sibilants and the two rhotics, rarely without the nasal, or with m instead of n) was either a reverential title or an allocutory formula of a deity[1]; it has also been related tentatively to the Basque word ‘jaun’, which means ‘lord’ vel sim. but may also have had the meaning of ‘(a) god’. D. Fletcher Valls thought that ‘iunstir’ (and probably ‘iun‘ in general) was a local Valencian Iberian word that spread to relatively restricted neighboring regions like e.g. Castellón, but several inscriptions found far more north, up to Saint-Marsal (Languedoc-Roussillon, France) seem to contradict this – unless of course, the pieces were transported there from the region around Valencia, which seems to have been the original heartland of the Iberians, while Iberian trade, e.g. with Massilia (Marseille),  was more centered in the north, like e.g. in Emporion (Empùries).

2. The presumed Iberian-Anatolian-Aegean link

In several inscriptions discussed by Fletcher Valls ‘iunstir’ is accompanied by what appears to be a name of a (semi-) deity: e.g. Neitin, Adune; if these could be identified with Neptune[2] and Adonis like Etruscan Nethuns and Atuns, Etruscan being another presumably originally eastern Uralic (actually rather Ugric) language that spent a long time in the Aegean-W. Anatolian region (e.g. the islands of Lesbos and Imbros), the picture would become quite clear. Both are pre-Greek chthonic deities, Neptune (Poseidon) related to water, storms (and tsunamis?) and earthquakes (i.e. the chthonic, earth  energy) – and horses too, and Adonis to the yearly cycle of the seasons, a funadamental given for an agrarian society. But what if  ‘iunstir’ itself were a theonym? Can we link it to another – most likely chthonic – deity, possibly Etruscan too?

Indeed, we can: On the gold leaves (or ‘tablets’, found in 1964) from Pyrgi (now Santa Severa), one of the old ports serving the Etruscan city of Caere (now Cerveteri, some 50 km  north-west of Rome near the Thyrrhenean coast), there is a reference to a redundantly named deity Uni-Astre (actually in the genitive: Uni-al Astre-s), known as Iuno to the Romans, as ’štrt/Ishtar/… to the Phoenicians and other Semitic and Mesopotamian peoples, and as Astartè to the Greeks. It is clear that in the Anatolian-Aegean (non-Greek) realm the Semitic female suffix –t was dropped (Astre). As to the chthonic character: Astarte was connected mainly with fertility and sexuality (and war, originally for farmland, I presume), and was seen as the chief female goddess – an inherited feature from a more matriarchal agrarian past, in my opinion.

Remarkably enough, Astarte’s name lives on in the name of Christian ‘Easter’ – maybe via Celtic (originally from the Spanish meseta, according to the ‘Celtic from the West’ hypothesis) – which was originally a pre-Christian spring festivity celebrating fertility, with fertility symbols like the Easter bunny, the eggs, the chicks, etc., before being appropriated by Christianity’s successor (which uses the Aramaic term Pascha) to the Hebrew Pesach, which happened to fall (or was decreed to fall, by the Church) on the Jewish Shebbath the day after Christ’s crucifixion, thus mixing the symbolism of the Jewish sacrificial lamb’s blood on doorposts with that of Christ on the cross.

So, I propose that:

Iunśtiŕ =  *Iuni-Iśtiŕ = Iuno-Astarte

and that its linguistic origin is similar to that of the Etruscan Pyrgi tablets, i.e. originally from the Aegean.

The unusual degree of confusion in spelling seems to indicate – nativized – rendering of a non-indigenous (i.e. not an originally Iberian) word along the lines of Neitin and Adune. I prefer the spelling with ś because the Phoenician form uses shin. I am rather undecided on the final rhotic; I think ŕ, if not original, reflects a tendency towards analogy with other –iŕ and –uŕ endings of Iberian origin.

Iberian words with iu-, apart from iunstir, are extremely rare. A colleague[3] drew my attention to the presence of iuneri in a text from Pico de Ajos (F.20.2), another one (H.0.1) with iunsir, from Saint-Marsal (Languedoc-Roussillon, France) (an obvious spelling error, in my opinion) and still other texts (e.g. Villares V, F.17.1) that contain iunte, iunti albeit not necessarily as independent elements. These look like nominal cases, maybe a dative or similar (for, to) and an ergative/agentative or ablative (by, from), respectively, of a hypothetical *Iuni, which could stand for the goddess Iuno (Etruscan Uni). This what one might expect in the context of a dedication to or a celebration of a goddess: ‘by Iuno’ (agent) and ‘to Iuno’ (beneficiary, destination). But it must be said that iunte, iunti seem to form part of compound names, even though that does not preclude case endings.

The Proto-Uralic suffix –ta is omnipresent in virtually all languages that are somehow connected to Uralic (related, influenced, converged…), something I assume for Iberian[4]. The ergative is closely linked to the ablative/originative through the idea of ‘origin of the action’, also when it is explicit with prepositions instead of declension only, like in Latin (ab) or German (von), where these prepositions can have either meaning: author or origin. So it is not too unreasonable to assume that -te/-ti could be variants of -ta, maybe through some form of vocal harmony or euphonics. Iberian in general, seems to harbor a vague ill-defined tendency to fronting vowels, or even iotacism, like in post-classic Greek.

In most ancient Mediterranean (non-Afro-Asiatic) languages, the case ending in -i almost always has a dative meaning in the wider sense, except mainly in Italic, and only up to a point, that has other cases in -i, depending on the root class.

Among the Pyrgi tablets, only the first leaf in Etruscan mentions the goddess’ name in a redundant fashion, with her two names (Etruscan and Phoenician);  On the third one, in Phoenician, only Astarte is mentioned. In the case of the aforementioned Iberian texts, the same thing could have happened, but in reverse: only Iuno (Uni, *Iuni).

It should be noted that I believe having detected other linguistic links to Anatolia, in other contexts[5]. Others, like G. Forni[6] have also detected Anatolian (non-Hittite, rather Luwian/Lycian) elements in Basque (IE elements) or Iberian; he even believes that Etruscan is an Anatolian non-Hittite language – which cannot be excluded, even though I still think Etruscan was originally a Ugric, Altaic-influenced language that may have undergone profound Anatolian IE influence or mixing, unless it is just another descendant of the peri-glacial Eurasian agglutinative suffixing SOV continuum, possibly via its Indo-Uralic descendant, the mother of its sisters PIE and Uralic proper. One can only wonder what the implications for Iberian might be.

3. Some considerations on the (mis)use of iunśtiŕ in Iberian

There is the curious fact that iunśtiŕ is rather often mentioned in combination with another theonym like Neitin (see above: Neptunus, Nethuns). It might be legitimite to hypothesize that iunśtiŕ had become a kind of generic term, e.g. ‘deity’ or ‘religious festivity’, during the late period we have Iberian texts – and knowledge – from.

This is not as farfetched as it might look: there is a clear precedent (of sorts): ieiunium/iaiunium, that came to mean ‘lent, fasting’ in the early Christian era (cf. ayuno in Spanish), even though in Roman tradition, the term actually referred to a festivity (Ieiunium Cereris) in honor of Ceres and Ianus Iunonius during which the fasting only consisted of not eating cereals (the produce protected by the goddess)[7].

4. Conclusion

It is possible to seriously support the hypothesis that ‘Iunśtiŕ’ can be identified with the Etruscan deity Uni-Astre, i.e. with Roman Iuno and her Phoenician equivalent Astarte, both being the chief female deities with clear chthonic connotations (fertility, sexuality, war – presumably for farmland). The origin of such custom of double name giving could very well come from the same region as Etruscan, i.e. originally from the Aegean realm.

[1] Fletcher Valls, D.:’Iunstir, palabra ibérica’,  ARSE 28-29 / 1994-1995 / 155-173

[2] As already suggested (for Neptune only) by J.L. González Muñoz in “La equivalencia entre el íbero iunstir y el vasco nagusi” (Laequivalenciaentreelberoiunstiryelvasconagusi.pdf)

[3] Antoni Jaquemot Ballarin, private communication.

[4] Selleslagh-Suykens, Eduard: “Iberian and Uralic: Ugric- and Altaic-like elements in Iberian and Basque, and their possible origin” (2014), on: www.academia.edu

[5] Selleslagh-Suykens, Eduard: “Iberian and Luwian, and its substrates – The Anatolian connection in the Iberian Peninsula”, on www.academia.edu

[6] Forni, Gianfranco: “Etruscan as an Anatolian (non-Hittite) Language” in: Atti del Sodalizio Glottologico Milanese, vol. V, 2010. Edizioni dell’Orso. On www.academia.edu

[7] Selleslagh-Suykens, Eduard: “The etymology of IEIUNIUM”, on www.academia.edu