Lapis lazuli is one of the most popular stones from the beginning of human history. Its deep, “cosmic” blue color is a symbol of royal persons and Gods, a symbol of honor, strength, spirit and vision. It is also a universal symbol of wisdom and truth.
The properties and value of the stone is lapis lazuli are really exceptional. In ancient times lapis lazuli was especially appreciated because of its beautiful color and the valuable ultramarine dye derived from it.
saved from pinterest
“Lapis lazuli is a sky-blue color. A good one is that which has no veins and white spots, does not change color in fire and has golden specks “– wrote the Armenian historian of the 17th century Arakel Davrizhetsi.
Today this wonderful stone is considered semi-precious, but in the deepest antiquity and at least until the XVII century it was considered precious. “… this is a genuine precious stone ..” -testifies Arakel.
Even for 2-3 millennium BC, Sumerian queens proudly wore gold jewelry with lapis lazuli. Its color and golden specks symbolized the starry sky and, apparently, it was believed that possessing this marvellous stone is the same as having a piece of the starry sky. Even on their last journey, the queens wearing jewelry with the dominant presence of lapis lazuli, while the mourners pronounced the spell: “Your beautiful lapis lazuli does not split the cutter in the underworld!” (“The Descent of Innin into the Underworld”),
In the large Sumerian city of Ur, the lunar god was depicted in the form of a bull with a lapis lazuli beard.
saved from pinterest
In the Sumerian temples, crypts, tombs excavated in the 20th century, many items, real works of art encrusted with lapis lazuli were found, even the signs of dominion and court in Sumerian epics literally meant: “a measuring ruler made of lapis lazuli.” And even here, we are able, through the Armenian language, to explain the real meaning of such a strange phenomenon, at first glance, as the fact that the measuring ruler is a symbol of dominion and court. The fact is that in Armenian, the word “ruler” is translated as քանոն (qanawn), which has another meaning “canon, law”, so it is not surprising that the ruler is a symbol of dominion and judgment, but why is the lazurite ruler? Yes, because the laws in Sumer came from the same place, from where lapis lazuli …
Many researchers quite reasonably believe that in Sumerians valued lapis lazuli more than any other precious stones. But not only due to this fact the stone of Sumerian queens is interesting.
saved from sumerians.cul
In the mythology of the Sumerians, the goddess Inanna (the predecessor of Aphrodite and Venus) travelled to the world of people with the help of lapis lazuli and measured the length of human lives. These crystals were considered to be a divine flesh, and according to the beliefs the Gods were crystalline beings.
Lapis Lazuli in epic poetry
As lapis lazuli very often mentioned in the Sumerian epic poetry, the stone became one of the main pointers in the problem of historical character. The fact is that neither in the Sumerian surroundings, nor anywhere else in the neighborhood with them, was possible to produce lapis lazuli, and even with such a magnificent quality. It follows from the same writings that the main suppliers of processed lapis lazuli to Sumer were the inhabitants of Aratta. The exact location of this country is still unknown. Various hypotheses are proposed and, as I have already said, lapis lazuli is considered one of the main indicators for solving this problem. For example, it is known that such high-quality lapis lazuli can be extracted only in the north of Afghanistan in Badakhshan and therefore a hypothesis arose ( according to author V.Sirianidi), who stated that Aratta was located exactly there, in the north of Afghanistan. This hypothesis relies mainly on the lines from the poem “Enmercar and the High Priest of Aratta,” which literally says the following: “..lapis lazuli are collected from at its deposits for her [the goddess Innin].”
saved from maps.ru
However, for a number of reasons, this hypothesis finds no evidence. There are many other hypotheses, mainly based on the idea of reexport of lapis lazuli, but I do not consider it possible and necessary to enumerate them. The only thing that exactly follows from all this, is the categorical rejection of the hypothesis according to which Aratta could be located somewhere in the territory of historical Armenia.
saved from www.esearch.com
Meanwhile, among the other things, what else we have to talk about this problem, the world of science will still have to pay attention to Armenia as a country where lapis lazuli production has been strongly developed since ancient times. If this were not so, then it would be very surprising to see why the ancient Greek scholars Theophrastus and Pliny II in their works called lapis lazuli “Armenian stone”. This state of affairs is possible only if Armenians have already monopolized Theophrastspheres of processing and trade of lapis lazuli for many centuries before Theophrastus, that is, long before the 4th century BC. It’s amazing why this fact has not been taken into account until now …
Genuine jewel
Moreover, according to the evidence of the Armenian historian Arakel Davrizhetsi, we can trace the ways in which lapis lazuli was transported from Badakhshan came to Armenia. With knowledge of this matter describing the characteristics of quality lapis lazuli, Araqel Davrizhetsi, writes that this quality “corresponds only to the stone mined in the mines of Badakhshan.” About stones from Kash and Shamishaide Arakel responds scornfully, calling them counterfeit, while about lapis lazuli from Badakhshan speaks with admiration – “This is a genuine jewel!” And a little further he pronounces the next, very important for us phrase – “We get it from Uzbeks, “that is, those very indigenous inhabitants of northern Afghanistan. In fact, in the 17th century, Armenians still had direct trade relations with one of the main ethnic groups of the population of northern Afghanistan, where Badakhshan is located. Certainly it is possible to assume that there is no reason to deny that this scheme of supplies of Badakhshan’s lapis lazuli was used from the deepest antiquity, when the sumerian cililisation existed and flourished.
Lapis Lazuli and Arattas’ mystery
Further, Arakel points to the source of his knowledge in this area. They are some clever and knowledgeable priest Sargis from Damascus – “from our Armenians”, who was engaged in the craft of a diamond shaper, polished and fixed precious stones, and bought and sold them. But regarding Sumerian epic, which stated that Aratta “...lapis lazuli is collected from at its deposits for her [the goddess Innin]” which represents the real power of lapis lazuli.
saved from simon_ltlivejournal
In another place of the poem it is told that the Sumerian priest Enmerkar, turning his entreaty to the goddess Innin, utters the following words: “My lady, Inanna, for Uruk people Aratty gold, silver for me skillfully let them handle”, it is “processed.” Are the Arattas engaged in the extraction and processing of lapis lazuli? It is possible, but more real, especially in the light of all of the above, I think that the direct participation in the extraction of lapis lazuli in the deposits of aratta was not accepted. As you know, any such import process is accompanied by the need to solve many problems, in particular, it should be assumed that in order to ensure the supply of qualitative lapis lazuli, the Aratta sent the delegations to Badakhshan, since the acceptance of Pliny the Senior Lazurite directly on the site of extraction would exclude the extra transportation costs for the processing of lapis lazuli and costs. These costs were not small and disputes between exporters and importers regarding the same quality were thus excluded. Therefore, it was mutually beneficial for both parties and, probably, the Sumerians had information about this, which allowed them to say that the aratta collect (take away) Lapis lazuli from its deposits.
saved from pinterest
Anyway, it is curious that lapis lazuli, being one of the main, if not the main point-indicating object for solving the problem of Aratta’s localization, is revealed as the object of attention of Armenian jewelers of ancient times, as evidenced by Theophrastus and Pliny.
saved from International Gem Society
In the light of all of the above, the researchers still have to see the fact of the etymological correspondence of the names of the country Aratt and the Armenian word “arat” (abundant), which fully corresponds to the notions of the Sumerians about Aratta, as a country in all respects abundant and rich.
Thanks to this wonderful sky-blue Lapis Lazuli which was as a stone of Gods, it is possible to bring irrefutable facts about Sumerian and Armenian civisations and learn how they used it and in which aims.
I hope you were inspired by influence of lapis lazuli in Sumerian culture. I would like you to invite you to online shop nammu where a lot of jewelry pieces with Lapis Lazuli are available. Touch the mystery and enjoy wearing pieces with this deep, blue-sky gem.
Leave a Reply