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Difference between revisions of "Besokian Cosmogony (text)"
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The text was found in a smaller room appended to the Mule’s Chamber, presumed the oldest part of the underground complex at Nishûnâc. It is written in the Besokian abugida, carved in the bare rockface in boustrophedon, starting right-to-left. There are no separators between words, but sentences are separated by vertical lines, as was later adopted into the Olgish, Aribelian, Reknayan, and Iilish writing systems, among others. Paragraphs are marked by line breaks; new lines consistently break the boustrophedon, beginning again to the right. | The text was found in a smaller room appended to the Mule’s Chamber, presumed the oldest part of the underground complex at Nishûnâc. It is written in the Besokian abugida, carved in the bare rockface in boustrophedon, starting right-to-left. There are no separators between words, but sentences are separated by vertical lines, as was later adopted into the Olgish, Aribelian, Reknayan, and Iilish writing systems, among others. Paragraphs are marked by line breaks; new lines consistently break the boustrophedon, beginning again to the right. | ||
The carving’s dating is uncertain but likely to lie between 3000 and 2800 B.E.B., making it the earliest extant writing at Nishûnâc, the first known use of the Besokian abugida, and the oldest evidence of the Besokian languages, one of only two texts attesting Proto-Besokian, the other being the, much younger, Old Besokian World Map, the linguistic status of which is uncertain. | The carving’s dating is uncertain but likely to lie between 3000 and 2800 B.E.B., making it the earliest extant writing at Nishûnâc, the first known use of the Besokian abugida, and the oldest evidence of the Besokian languages, one of only two texts attesting Proto-Besokian, the other being the, much younger, Old Besokian World Map, the linguistic status of which is uncertain. Depending on its exact date, the ''Hêrûn hâm Hôrenod'' competes with the oldest writings in Abreshahar for being the oldest extant instance of writing in Elondor. | ||
==Text and translation== | ==Text and translation== | ||
The original inscription, in the Besokian abugida, can be transliterated as follows (a full stop separating glyphs, a pipe indicating the Besokian sentence separator): | The original inscription, in the Besokian abugida, can be transliterated as follows (a full stop separating glyphs, a pipe indicating the Besokian sentence separator): | ||
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</blockquote> | </blockquote> | ||
==Analysis== | ==Analysis== | ||
The text tells the story of (and is in turn the only source for) the Besokian creation myth. The story shows many parallels with the creation myth of its surrounding cultures; both the Divine Sequence and the Three Hills feature prominently, showing a series of deities create the sea, the first mountain, the sun, and finally, life. While overall fairly similar to the Olgish creation myth, the Hêrûn hâm Hôrenod notably begins directly with the Divine Sequence, omitting note of any previous ages. It also, unlike Olgish and Kalparian mythology, does not imply creation from chaos but presupposed the existence of two fundamental entities, represented as a juxtaposition of light and darkness and femininity and masculinity, placing this text closer to the dualistic mythologies of Seligon. | The text tells the story of (and is in turn the only source for) the Besokian creation myth. The story shows many parallels with the creation myth of its surrounding cultures; both the Divine Sequence and the Three Hills feature prominently, showing a series of deities create the sea, the first mountain, the sun, and finally, life. While overall fairly similar to the Olgish creation myth, the Hêrûn hâm Hôrenod notably begins directly with the Divine Sequence, omitting note of any previous ages. It also, unlike Olgish and Kalparian mythology, does not imply creation from chaos but presupposed the existence of two fundamental entities, represented as a juxtaposition of light and darkness and femininity and masculinity, placing this text closer to the dualistic mythologies of Seligon. Curiously, while respecting Besokian matriarchy and consistently listing female characters before male ones, the actions of the gods appear in inverse order, male before female, as usual in the Divine Sequence, suggesting the myth itself is not of Besokian origin but was imported, possibly from Avalian or Nokimi sources (see [[Divine Sequence#Origin]]). | ||
The portrayal of the gods themselves is more formalized and geometrical than in other religions, portraying the six gods | |||
===List of names and places mentioned=== | ===List of names and places mentioned=== | ||