Vaginas depicted in Sumerian: a database with commentary

by Jennifer Ball May 2, 2011

This is the Sumerian word for woman, rotated 90 clockwise. During the development of their writing, the Sumerians rotated everything counter-clockwise by 90 for reasons no one knows. Perhaps it was a simple form of encoding: the rotation makes it more difficult to see what the inscriptions resemble.

According to the Pennsylvania Sumerian Dictionary1, the above triangular character means woman at least 3,079 times, starting in Early Dynasty IIIb, which Wikipedia gives as 2,540-2,350 BCE. This means that more than three thousand times a vagina stood as a representative of femalenot just woman because female lamb has a vagina:

Woman outline from www.essex.ac.uk

female lamb - kir

(rotated 90 cw)

http://psd.museum.upenn.edu/epsd/index.html : The Pennsylvania Sumerian Dictionary Project is carried out in the Babylonian Section of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Anthropology and Archaeology. It is funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities and private contributions.

Vaginas depicted in Sumerian: a database. Rev. 27 June 2011 8:44 AM

Jennifer Ball, May 2, 2011 - 1

It turns out that this vagina-looking character is in a lot of Sumerian words that we wouldnt necessarily associate with vaginas: words like pure and insulting and vessel. This vagina-looking graphic isnt the only character that signifies for vagina either. When something is important, there is not a one-to-one correlation between that thing and a sound or scrawl. Many sound combinations signify for vagina because vaginas make things happen. Archaic Bookkeeping by Hans J. Nissen, Peter Damerow, Robert K. Englund, and translated by Paul Larsen (1993) was recommended

vagina

to me by Philip Jones, one of the two contacts listed on the Sumerian dictionarys website. In Archaic Bookkeeping, the authors describe the types of signs found in Sumerian. On page 89 you can find the description above of the sound combination SAL, which also stood for vagina. SAL plus the sign for calf means heifer calf. My son told me that he learned in history that in Ancient Greek it was a complement for a woman to be called a heifer. In Ancient Egypt, cow and maid were very close (see Roots of the Word Idiot, www.originofalphabet.com). According to Kinsey, Among boys raised on farms, about 17 per cent experience orgasm as the product of animal contacts which occur sometime after the onset of adolescence.1 A male friend at UC Davis said that he knew of three male students who had claimed to have had sex with sheep, and they also claimed that a sheeps vagina was the closest of any animals to a womans (as if theyd tried other species besides sheep). Even Jared Diamond mentions this aberrant behavior on page 196 of Guns, Germs, and Steel: The answer slowly emerged: he had confessed to repeated intercourse with sheep on a recent visit to the family farm; perhaps that was how he had contracted the mysterious microbe. This episode, related to me by a physician friend involved in the case... We all hear it from our friends. The doctor friend only heard it after he had revived the gentleman who had been beaten by his translator who also happened to be his wife. 1 Kinsey, Alfred Charles and Wardell Baxter Pomeroy, and Clyde Eugene Martin. Sexual behavior in the human male. Page 671.
2 - Jennifer Ball, May 2, 2011 Vaginas depicted in Sumerian: a database. Rev. 27 June 2011 8:44 AM

Perhaps we all should consider that this behavior is less aberrant than once suspected. We exist because the drive for sex is strong. Whos to tell you that you can only mate with one species when youre newly human yourself? There is a word in Hebrew, raba, that means to mate a woman with an animal. Just because they never achieved woman-animal admixtures doesnt mean they didnt try repeatedly (though, if youve read Geek Love by Katherine Dunn, you know that prenatal experiments with toxins could theoretically create all sorts of outcomes which could appear to be chimeric individuals; early humans conceived of beings that were animal-human mixes: the Sphinx, satyrs, Hathor the cow goddess, Taweret the hippo goddess of pregnancy, Bastet the cat goddess, and many more). There wasnt much entertainment in those days. Raba meant excitement. In Greek thel is nipple and thea is theater (see bottom right.) Women were theater because that was the view men wanted to see. And if you didnt have a woman, youd have a sheep. If you didnt have a sheep, youd have men in womens clothing. Men in womens clothing is the underpinning of comedy. That and people falling down.

Above is the definition for raba from the Hebrew Lexicon at www.searchgodsword.com. Below left is page 252 from The Etymologies of Isidore of Seville, which demonstrates that in 636 AD they were trying to figure out which species had to have had sex with another in order to create new species. They also thought that a beast could be calmed by a virgin girls lap, which is why virgins were often trotted out in front of armies in hopes to avoid battle. Below is page 101 from Borrors Dictionary of Word Roots and Combining Forms which defines Greek and Latin.

Vaginas depicted in Sumerian: a database. Rev. 27 June 2011 8:44 AM

Jennifer Ball, May 2, 2011 - 3

But dont believe me. Lets consult the Sumerians. Below is the Sumerian sign list of animals from page 89 of Archaic Bookkeeping. Think of this as a code for animals because the Sumerians (or whoever invented cuneiform because theres a debate about that) figured out that if you breed animals, you get more. This is apparent in the Biblical story of Laban as well, where he practiced selective breeding in order to short his controlling father-in-law. Sign Pronunciation English meaning When you reorder this list into males together and females together, and then you put the complementary sex of the animal ((ram to ewe, male lamb to female lamb, etc.) it appears that Sumerians are akin to electricians. Electricians (and musicians) call the respective electrical plugs male and female. The relationship of the female to male characters below, though not always a perfect fit, still would imply that the Sumerians were depicting the rear of the animals, the place where breeding was done, which would have mattered to an early culture. The authors of Archaic Accounting did not order the animals the way I have because they are unaware of this relationship, which they make clear on page 116: Abstract or arbitrarily shaped signs lacking any comprehensible association to the object depicted, for example, the circle and cross denoting small cattle. Sign comp. sexPronunciation English meaning (They still did an impressive job with this book.) A plus inside a circle would be a target. Small cattle might be a desirable target for some 5,000 years ago. The gender symbol for woman is a plus below a circle because our vaginas are below our heads. With cattle, the circle is
4 - Jennifer Ball, May 2, 2011 Vaginas depicted in Sumerian: a database. Rev. 27 June 2011 8:44 AM

level with the plus because a cows vagina Four categories of Sumerian Signs is level with its head (as with a sheep, donkey, goat, deer, gazelle, eland, etc.). Below is an example from page 21 in Archaic Bookkeeping showing that a circle with a plus means small cattle (highlighted in pink). To the left is the gender sign for woman (which allegedly depicts the goddess Venus mirror). The only difference between them is orientation of the two parts of the sign: circle and plus. The Chinese had a similar character to the Sumerians small cattle in the sinograph tian2, which means field, arable land, cultivated. If you read my document Meow is just another name for cat (www.originofalphabet.com), you will see that this target char-

acter meant more than field. Some sources include hunt. I think it also stands for vagina in certain contexts, such as in the word for prostitute:

Prostitute

field, arable land, cultivated

Vaginas depicted in Sumerian: a database. Rev. 27 June 2011 8:44 AM

Jennifer Ball, May 2, 2011 - 5

(Characters which include a vagina or mean vagina. Keep in mind that, soundwise, = sh, and that = ng)

The Vagina Sumerian database

6 - Jennifer Ball, May 2, 2011

Vaginas depicted in Sumerian: a database. Rev. 27 June 2011 8:44 AM

Vaginas depicted in Sumerian: a database. Rev. 27 June 2011 8:44 AM

Jennifer Ball, May 2, 2011 - 7

8 - Jennifer Ball, May 2, 2011

Vaginas depicted in Sumerian: a database. Rev. 27 June 2011 8:44 AM

Vaginas depicted in Sumerian: a database. Rev. 27 June 2011 8:44 AM

Jennifer Ball, May 2, 2011 - 9

10 - Jennifer Ball, May 2, 2011

Vaginas depicted in Sumerian: a database. Rev. 27 June 2011 8:44 AM

Vaginas depicted in Sumerian: a database. Rev. 27 June 2011 8:44 AM

Jennifer Ball, May 2, 2011 - 11

12 - Jennifer Ball, May 2, 2011

Vaginas depicted in Sumerian: a database. Rev. 27 June 2011 8:44 AM

Vaginas depicted in Sumerian: a database. Rev. 27 June 2011 8:44 AM

Jennifer Ball, May 2, 2011 - 13

I include the snake (right) in order to show the relationship of snake to inlaw.

14 - Jennifer Ball, May 2, 2011

Vaginas depicted in Sumerian: a database. Rev. 27 June 2011 8:44 AM

Vaginas depicted in Sumerian: a database. Rev. 27 June 2011 8:44 AM

Jennifer Ball, May 2, 2011 - 15

Junior wives of kings were often foreigners because princesses were a good bargaining chip when negotiating with other kingdoms. You can see evidence of this below in the word lukur which is both (junior) wife of a deified king or stranger, foreigner. Interesting how close this word is to lucre, which means gain, profit, from Latin lucrum (OED). Namlukur means concubinage (see previous page, top). The prefix nam makes this an official designation.

16 - Jennifer Ball, May 2, 2011

Vaginas depicted in Sumerian: a database. Rev. 27 June 2011 8:44 AM

Vaginas depicted in Sumerian: a database. Rev. 27 June 2011 8:44 AM

Jennifer Ball, May 2, 2011 - 17

18 - Jennifer Ball, May 2, 2011

Vaginas depicted in Sumerian: a database. Rev. 27 June 2011 8:44 AM

Vaginas depicted in Sumerian: a database. Rev. 27 June 2011 8:44 AM

Jennifer Ball, May 2, 2011 - 19

20 - Jennifer Ball, May 2, 2011

Vaginas depicted in Sumerian: a database. Rev. 27 June 2011 8:44 AM

Vaginas depicted in Sumerian: a database. Rev. 27 June 2011 8:44 AM

Jennifer Ball, May 2, 2011 - 21

22 - Jennifer Ball, May 2, 2011

Vaginas depicted in Sumerian: a database. Rev. 27 June 2011 8:44 AM

Vaginas depicted in Sumerian: a database. Rev. 27 June 2011 8:44 AM

Jennifer Ball, May 2, 2011 - 23

24 - Jennifer Ball, May 2, 2011

Vaginas depicted in Sumerian: a database. Rev. 27 June 2011 8:44 AM

Vaginas depicted in Sumerian: a database. Rev. 27 June 2011 8:44 AM

Jennifer Ball, May 2, 2011 - 25

26 - Jennifer Ball, May 2, 2011

Vaginas depicted in Sumerian: a database. Rev. 27 June 2011 8:44 AM

Vaginas depicted in Sumerian: a database. Rev. 27 June 2011 8:44 AM

Jennifer Ball, May 2, 2011 - 27

28 - Jennifer Ball, May 2, 2011

Vaginas depicted in Sumerian: a database. Rev. 27 June 2011 8:44 AM

Vaginas depicted in Sumerian: a database. Rev. 27 June 2011 8:44 AM

Jennifer Ball, May 2, 2011 - 29

30 - Jennifer Ball, May 2, 2011

Vaginas depicted in Sumerian: a database. Rev. 27 June 2011 8:44 AM

Vaginas depicted in Sumerian: a database. Rev. 27 June 2011 8:44 AM

Jennifer Ball, May 2, 2011 - 31

From the UCLA Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative: http://www.cdli.ucla.edu/tools/SignLists/protocuneiform/archsigns.html

From the depiction above. Could this signify a shrine or a wedding?

32 - Jennifer Ball, May 2, 2011

Vaginas depicted in Sumerian: a database. Rev. 27 June 2011 8:44 AM

Vaginas depicted in Sumerian: a database. Rev. 27 June 2011 8:44 AM

Jennifer Ball, May 2, 2011 - 33

34 - Jennifer Ball, May 2, 2011

Vaginas depicted in Sumerian: a database. Rev. 27 June 2011 8:44 AM

Vaginas depicted in Sumerian: a database. Rev. 27 June 2011 8:44 AM

Jennifer Ball, May 2, 2011 - 35