Sacred King

In many historical societies, the position of kingship carried a sacral meaning & was identical with that of a high priest & judge.

Divine kingship is related to the concept of theocracy. Although a sacred King doesn’t necessarily rule through his religious authority. But rather, the temporal (or non-religious) position itself has a religious significance behind. The monarch may be divine, become divine, or represent divinity to a greater or lesser extent.

In sacred kingship, the king often has little political power, & is contrasted with divine kingship where the king triumphs in the politico-religious struggle between the people & the king. A sacred king is often encumbered with ritals & used as a scapegoat for disasters such as famine & drought. However, they can become divine & achieve greater power.

In Africa, sacred kings are often represented as volatile & potentially dangerous wild animals. The Ashanti flog, yes flog, a newly selected King (Ashantehene) before enthroning him.

From the Bronze Age in the Near East, the enthronement & anointment of a monarch is a central religious ritual, reflected in such titles as Messiah or Christ. This became separated from worldly kingship. Sargon of Akkad described himself as a “deputy of Ishtar.” This is like how the modern Catholic popes take the role of the “Vicar of Christ.”

Kings are styled as shepherds from the earliest times. The term was applied to Sumerian princes such as Lugalbanda in the 3rd millennium BCE. Shepherd imagery combines themes of leadership & the responsibility to supply food & protection, as well as superiority. As a mediator between the people & the divine, the sacred King was credited with special wisdom (like Solomon or Gilgamesh) or vision (via oneiromancy). Oneiromancy is a form of divination based on dreams, & also uses dreams based on dreams, & also uses to predict the future.

Here are some examples of some sacred kings:

• Chakravartin, a righteous king derived from Indian religious thought
• Devaraja, a cult of divine kings in Southeast Asia
• Germanic kingship
• Kings in pre-Christian Scandinavia & England claimed descent from God’s such as Odin & Freyr. Scandinavian kings in pre-Christian times served as priests at sacrifices.
• The kings of Goryeo claimed descent from the Dragon King
• Holy Roman emperors
• Imperial cults
• The Omukama of Kitara ruled as a heavenly sovereign
• The High King of Ireland, according to medieval tradition, married the sovereignty goddess
• The Eze Nri, ruler of the defunct Igbo Nri Kingdom in present-day Nigeria. He was addressed as “Igwe,” meaning “heavenly one” in the Igbo language, & has bestowed his title to the monarch of a contemporary traditional state of the same name.
• The Emperor of Japan is known in Japanese as Tenno (Heavenly sovereign) & was formerly believed to be a living kami.
• The Kende was the sacred King of the Magyars in the 9th century.
• The Khagan
• The kings of Luba became deities after death.
• The earthly power of the papacy.
• Pharaoh, the title of Ancient Egyptian rulers. The pharaoh adopted names symbolizing holy might.
• The last vestige of Athenian monarchy, Archon basileus, mainly retained the duties of overseeing certain religious rites.
• The Son of Heaven, an East Asian title
• Shah & Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist, Islamic concepts
• The kings of Sparta claimed direct descent from Heracles himself, & served as hereditary priests.
• Madkhalism in Islam

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#3rdMillenniumBC #9thCentury #Africa #AncientEgypt #ArchonBasileus #Ashantehene #Ashanti #Athens #BronzeAge #Catholic #Chakravartin #Christ #Devaraja #Divination #DivineKingship #DragonKing #Dreams #EastAsia #EmperorOfJapan #England #EzeNri #Freyr #Germanic #Gilgamesh #Goryeo #Heracles #HighKingOfIreland #HighPriest #HolyRomanEmperor #IgboLanguage #IgboNriKingdom #Igwe #Indian #Ishtar #Islam #IslamicJurist #Japanese #Judge #Kami #Kende #KingSolomon #KingsOfLuba #Lugalbanda #Madkhalism #Magyars #Messiah #Monarch #NearEast #Nigeria #Odin #OmukamaOfKitara #Oneiromancy #Papacy #Pharaoh #Popes #PreChristian #Priests #SacredKing #SargonOfAkkad #Scandinavia #Shah #Shepherds #SonOfHeaven #SoutheastAsia #Sparta #Sumerian #Tenno #TheKhagan #Theocracy #VicarOfChrist

Added again an article called "In the Forest of Baduhenna".
It is the last article in this overview:
https://boudicca.de/non-fiction-overview/

Wieder ein Artikel hinzugefügt, es heißt "Der Wald der Baduhenna".
Es ist der letzte Artikel in dieser Übersicht:
https://boudicca.de/de/ueberblick-sachbeitraege/

Weer een artikel toegevoegd, het heet "Het woud van Baduhenna".
Het is het laatste artikel in dit overzicht:
https://boudicca.de/nl/non-fictie-overzicht/

#history #geschichte #germanic #roman

**Settler Colonization and Language Contact: How they Shaped Old English**

"_This thesis examines the way in which Germanic dialects, which were brought to Britain by settlers in the post-Roman period and which ultimately evolved into Old English, came to predominate in the southern and eastern parts of the island over a stretch of roughly two centuries spanning the fifth to the seventh._"

🔗 https://knowledge.uchicago.edu/record/15187?v=pdf.

#OpenAccess #OA #Thesis #OldEnglish #Language #Migration #Britain #Germanic #AngloSaxons #Linguistics #History @linguistics

1/ I am proud to announce that my paper on Generative approaches to Germanic syntax is published:

https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780199384655.013.1073

You may often have asked yourself what we need publishers for. Well, there was peer review and a good editorial process, but my main partner in this was Prof. Oliver Schallert and the editors of the encyclopedia. The remaining task of the publishers is to ruin our manuscripts and they did quite successfully.

#syntax #germanic #linguistics

One of my dolls lives in a museum. You can meet and greet her in The Museum of Magic, Fortune-telling & Witchcraft in Edinburgh, Scotland. It's Frau Perchta from Germanic mythology. She is waiting for you in Folk Witch display.

If you run a museum or any other public space that you think could benefit from such doll, let me know. I'm open for discussions and creating the doll that you need. I just love museums and the idea of my witch dolls greeting people in public spaces. If my doll lands in your museum I will brag about it forever.

#perchta #germanic #mythology #museum #witchcraft #fortunetelling #magic #history #scotland #edinburgh

Dull. Means the same in English and German. Boring, blunt, gloomy.
Well, at least where I come from, we use "dull" as German word.
Its of Germanic origin, so maybe not even Latin or Greek https://www.oed.com/dictionary/dull_adj?tl=true

There's a substantial research body on language and climate zones. Here's one on sonority https://academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/article/2/12/pgad384/7457938
tldr: the colder it gets, the more sharp consonants and fewer vowels.

And from this, I propose that dull was an early word invention.😁 One that stems from earlier humans who developed it in a warmer climate. Warmer than Germanic.

The alternative: as Germanic word invention, it was so uncommon in its use that it doesn't contain any sharp consonants at all. Words with sharp things like tsk are important in our climate. Dull isn't.
So Ze Germans were not bored, not blunt, not gloomy – or whatever the word meant originally.

I like dull.

#ClimateChange #language #Germanic