1.28.13
Mirror from Vulci which shows the story of Helen of
Troy and the characters in the story with Etruscan
names
. 
Mirror
from Vulci
Image
from The Etruscans, by Massimo Pallottino,
Indiana University Press 1975 edition; first
published by Ulrico Hoepli, Milan, 1942
(See also updated Work Notes, "Unique perspectives
in Etruscan mythology — concerning the causes of
the Trojan War.")
Script
DM
DM-1
Top: Left to
right: TVRAN, HERCLE, EPE VR, TINIA, RALNA
DM-6
Middle: Left
to right: AECAI, MEAN, ELCHINTRE, ELINAI,
MENLE, ACHMEMNVN,
LASA THIMRAE
DM- 14
Bottom: LASA
RACVN
INTRODUCTION & UPDATE
(12.07.07)
We have updated the identity of LASA
THIMRAE ( previously believed to be LASA
HIMRAE). In accounts on the Trojan War
that are believed to date from the 1st
Century B.C. the Trojans are described
worshipping Thymbraean Apollo (See http://www.theoi.com/Text/DictysCretensis3.html).
Thymbra was a plain in Troas through which
the river Thymbrius flowed into its course
to the Scamander. Apollo had there a
temple, and thence it is calledy
Thybraean. (See Virgil's Georgics : books.google.com,
Harvard Classics edition, p. 95-97).
The temple of Thymbraean Apollo figures in
many incidents of the Trojan War. Apollo
sent two serpents across the sea to
destroy Laocoon's sons, if not Laocoon
himself. We recall the famous statue in
the Vatican of Laocoon struggling with the
serpents. The reason of the calamity which
befell Laocoon
is explained by Servius
on the authority of Euphorion.
He tells us that when the Greek
army landed in the Troad,
the Trojans
stoned the priest of Poseidon
to death, because he had not, by offering
sacrifices to the sea god, prevented the
invasion. Accordingly, when the Greeks
seemed to be departing, it was deemed
advisable to sacrifice to Poseidon,
no doubt in order to induce him to give
the Greeks
a stormy passage. But the priesthood
was vacant, and it was necessary to choose
a priest by lot. The lot fell on Laocoon,
priest of the Thymbraean Apollo,
but he had incurred the wrath of Apollo
by sleeping with his wife in front of the
divine image, and for this sacrilege he
perished with his two sons. (See
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu)
Another event involved
the sacrifice of Polyzena, daughter of
Priam and Hecuba, who was loved by
Achilles. A good study on this Trojan
princess is at
http://homepage.mac.com/cparada/GML/Polyxena1.html).
Another account, and perhaps the most
relevant to LASA THIMRAE, is that of
Cassandra. When
she was a young girl, she spent the night
at the temple of Thymbraean Apollo with
her twin brother, Helenus. When their
parents looked in on them the next
morning, the children were entwined with
serpents, which flicked their tongues into
the children's ears. This enabled
Cassandra and Helenus to divine the
future. Once
Cassandra had grown up, she again spent
the night in Apollo's temple. This time,
however, Apollo tried to force himself
upon her. When she refused his advances,
he cursed her in such a way that no one
would believe her prophecies, although
they would be true. (A study on Cassandra
is at http://www.stanford.edu/~plomio/cassandra.html)
The
following is from an email sent in
response to an inquiry on the goddess
Turan: Turan is the Etruscan goddess that
is equivalent to the Roman Venus and Greek
Aphrodite. She appears in several mirror
inscriptions with her name only above her
image and one bas relief where she is
seated beside Ceres, an Asian mother
goddess. I have planned to add to my Banquet
of the Gods.html the roles of the
goddesses in the pantheons of the western
religions, but haven't gotten to it.
There is
no Etruscan inscription which I have
covered through Etruscan Phrases
that speaks of Turan. We know that she
is associated with birth, since her
staff has a pomegranate on the top of
it. In this mirror she is shown on the
top level of the pantheon associated
with the story of Helen of Troy. This
mirror is hiding a story that has yet to
be told, and it would be nice to find an
Etruscan inscription that actually told
a story about Turan, but the "Divine
Mirror" (as I call it) is about the most
we have at the moment.
Hercules is holding in his hand Epe OR
(EPE VR) in presentation to Zeus. Epe Or
is not Eros, I believe, since Eros is
mentioned in the Etruscan Scripts, its
location being identified in the Table 1.html. Eros
is mentioned in the Tavola Eugubine, and
the name is associated with another
god/goddess. Eros also is the Latin term
for "Lord," but I believe the
cherubim-like god Eros, the son of
Aphrodite, who caused people to fall in
love by shooting golden arrows at them,
is intended in the Etruscan word, ERVS.
However, EPE VRis advising Tini, who is
the Roman Jupiter and Greek Zeus, and
beside Tini is his consort of that
pantheon who is named Ralna. Ralna is
the equivalent of the Greek mother of
Helen of Troy (Zeus was her father. He
transformed into a swan, as he chased
Helen's mother, usually considered to be
Nemesis, as she changed into a goose.
Out of the union came an egg that was
delivered to Leda, the wife of King
Tyndareus of Sparta. Leda raised the
child born from the egg who became known
as Helen of Troy. EPE VR appears, in
fact, to be Eros. There are two versions
to the rape of Nemesis, who was the
personification of resentment found in
men – and, therefore, supposedly in the
gods – by other men who commit crimes
with apparent impunity, or who have
inordinate good fortune. Nemesis was
sometimes worshipped as two Nemeses, but
both were said to be daughters of Nyx
(Night). Besides the version involving
her rape by Zeus, there is another where
Aphrodite, in the form of an eagle,
pretended to chase the swan Zeus. He
took refuge in the lap of Nemesis (who
retained her human form in this story).
The goddess, apparently overcome with
compassion, did not chase the bird away,
but, instead, went obligingly to sleep.
In both versions Nemesis gives birth to
an egg that became Helen, the most
beautiful woman in the world. [Myth from
The Meridian Handbook of Classical
Mythology, Edward Tripp].
In the Divine Mirror we can see Turan
with her staff, topped by a pomegranate,
signifying that she had something to do
with the birth of Helen in the lower
panel of the mirror. As Aphrodite, then,
we can suppose that the mirror is
recalling the second version, where
Aphrodite changed into an eagle and gave
chase to Zeus, the swan. But here we see
what appears to be Eros seated in
Hercules' outstretched hand to Tinia.
This may be a third version of the story
– so far unrecorded – where Aphrodite
uses Eros to cause Zeus to give chase to
Nemesis, the goose that laid the egg of
Helen. Since we are looking at a mirror
that displays lineage, it would appear
in this version of the story Turan and
Hercules are the parents of Epe Or.
Aphrodite is recorded in Greek mythology
as the mother of Eros, but her
connection to Hercules and Eros in this
mirror are presently unknown. Curiously,
we have another mirror with Turan riding
a swan, which is difficult to reconcile
to known mythology.
Tyndareus, king of Argos, failed to
honor Aphrodite to her satisfaction and
to punish him, she arranged that his
three daughters, Helen, Clytemnestra,
and Timandra, should all betray their
husbands. Aphrodite is also involved in
the Judgment of Paris, when Paris (aka
Alexandar) was asked by Hera, Athena and
Aphrodite which was the most beautiful,
Paris sided with Aphrodite. Aphrodite
had bribed Paris to say that she was the
most beautiful and promised as a reward
the hand of the most beautiful woman in
the world (who turned out to be Helen of
Troy, Queen of Sparta, who was married
to the brother of Agamemnon, Menelaus.
Clytemnestra was the wife of Agamemnon.
Agamemnon, who launched the invasion of
Troy, bribed the king of Sparta to marry
Helen to his brother Menelaus. In the
Divine Mirror, lower panel, we can see
Agamemnon and Helen shaking hands on the
marriage agreement.
Thus, in the top panel we see Aphrodite
(Turan) and Hercules offering to Zeus
(Tini) Turan's son, Eros (Epe Or) to
arrange the mating with Nemesis (Ralna)
who changed into a goose and laid the
egg producing Helen. In the bottom panel
Agamemnon is bargaining directly with
Helen for the hand of his brother to her
in marriage. In that panel we see two
characters reacting strongly to the
agreement (since it went against the
Judgment of Paris). Ralna is mentioned
in other scripts as Ral. The suffix "na"
appears to be an augmentative suffix,
like "one" in Italian. We know that
Ralna is a goddess because of the robes
she is wearing and thus cannot be
confused with the mortal wife of
Tyndareus, Leda, who in other versions
of the story was directly raped by Zeus.
Thus, this mirror recalls the story of
Nemesis. A good site on the mythology
relating to Aphrodite is at http://www.theoi.com/Olympios/Aphrodite.html.
AECAI, who wears a leopard skin and a
Phrygian helmet, is protesting Helen's
marriage to Menelaus, and a lares
(household goddess) is leaving the room,
carrying her wand of prophesy with her.
She may be Cassandra who predicted the
disaster that would come. Aecai seems to
be the son of the King of Troy who also
prophesied that Paris would be the cause
of the fall of Troy. The leopard skin
should identify him. There are Asian
gods that wore leopard skins, such as
Dionysus, (Roman, Bacchus; the Romans
also called Bacchus "Father Liber."). I
initially identified Aecai with
Aeacus-i, king of Aegina, grandfather of
Achilles. He did not wear a leopard
skin, I suspect, so Dyonysus seems to be
preferred. And he is linked to Artemis
(Diana) the huntress. MEAN (Latin
Maenaas-idis [f], a bacchante, a
prophetess) is probably Artemis (the
Romans called her Diana). So the link of
Mean and Aecai with the Bacchante rite
makes sense. Linking Artemis to the rite
is another matter. The ancient name of
Lydia was, according to the catalogue of
Greek ships and Trojan allies, was
Maeonia. MEAN may derive from that term
and we know that the worship of
Artemis/Diana/Mean was centered in
Lydia.
Part of the complex myth involving
Dionysus involves the kidnapping of the
god by Tyrrhenian (Etruscan) sailors. In
that story Dionysus caused wild animals,
including lions, leopards, and bears, to
appear on the deck of the ship, causing
all of the crew to jump overboard, being
changed to dolphins. After the
kidnapping Dionysus went to Phrygia
where he was cured of his madness and
adopted the oriental costume and rites
similar to those of Cybele. His rites
included orgies, etc., and those who
served him he rewarded with many
blessings, particularly the knowledge of
the cultivation of the grape and the
pleasures of wine. Where he encountered
opposition he brought terrible
destruction to those who defied him,
often using his infallible weapon,
madness. He caused Lycurgus to go mad,
for instance, who hacked to death his
son, Dryas, or his wife and son.
Orpheus was one of his priests and
Dionysus is connected with fertility,
and his widely orgiastic rites were
celebrations of the earth's fertility.
Dionysus was known by other names and
sometimes the name Iacchus was confused
with his. Iacchus is an obscure diety
honored at the Eleusinian mysteries
together with Demeter and Persephone.
Iacchus is sometimes called Demeter's
son, sometimes her husband, sometimes a
don of Persephone identical with
Zagreus. He was also identified with
Dionysus and occassonally said to be
Dionysus' son. He may have been a minor
agricultural deity. Some scholars
believe that the god came into being as
a personification of the cry "Iacche!"
uttered during certain Eleusinian
processions.
AECAI is best related to Aeacus, the
first king of Aegina. We base this
conclusion on the fact that Aeacus
gained a widespread reputation for piety
and respect for justice. Aeacus was the
son of Zeus and Aegina, daughter of the
Sicyonian river-god Asopus. As a young
man Aeacus lived alone on an otherwise
uninhabited island. He prayed to his
father for companions, and the ants on
the island were transformed into men and
women. Aeacus called them Myrmidons,
from myrmex ("ant"). Aeacus gained his
reputation for justice in the judgment
of Nisus and Sceiron. When Nisus and
Sceiron were disputing each other's
claims to the rule of Megara, Aeacus was
asked to decide between them. He
pronounced Nisus king, Sceiron minister
of war. Sceiron evidently believed that
Aeacus had acted fairly, for he gave him
his daughter, Endeïs, for his wife.
Later all or many Greek lands were
struck with a terrible drought, the
result of Pelops' murder of Stymphalus,
Aegeus' treachery toward Androgeus, or
some other cause. The cities sent envoys
to Delphi and were told by the oracle
that only the prayers of Aeacus could
help them. Aeacus consented to do what
he could. He prayed to Zeus, and
fertility returned to the earth, or else
to all of it but Attica, where only
Aegeus' capitulation to his enemy Minos
lifted the plague.
When Apollo and Poseidon were building
the walls of Troy, they called on Aeacus
for help. The walls were scarcely
erected when three snakes attacked them.
Two fell dead, but the third, which had
assaulted the part that Aeacus had
built, was able to enter. Apollo
correctly interpreted this omen to mean
that the descendants of Aeacus would
bring destruction on Troy during three
generations.
Endeïs bore two sons, Peleus and
Telamon. Aeacus had a third son, Phocus,
by the nereïd Psamathe. Phocus grew
up to excel his half-brothers in
athletic prowess and they killed him.
When Aeacus learned of the murder he
exiled both sons. Since Phocus' sons
also emigrated, Aeacus was left to a
lonely rule. After his death he became
either a gatekeeper or a judge in Hades.
(1)
In the Divine Mirror.html Mean is
placing a laurel wreath on the head of
Alexander (Paris, Etruscan Elkintre).
Artemis (Diana aka Mean) is known as the
virgin goddess of childbirth. She was
originally a mother-goddess and similar
to the Phrygian goddess Cybele. She,
like Dionysus, are not described in
common myths of Helen of Troy, so we are
looking at another version here.
While Eros by some myths was among the
first pantheon of gods, born along with
Chaos, prior to Aphrodite, he is
considered the son of Aphrodite and Ares
(Roman Mars). They had other children:
Deimus (Fear), Phobus (Panic) and
Harmonia. In the version being told in
the Divine Mirror it appears that Turan
and Hercules are the parents of Epe Or.
While Eros is not mentioned as the cause
of Alexander's passion for Helen (since
it had been prearranged by Aphrodite /
Turan), it can be presumed that Eros
would be key to the story and belonged
in the upper panel and is pictured as
being the vehicle by which Alexandar is
attracted to Helen.
Mel Copeland
Etruscan mythology follows a lot
of Greek mythology, but, as we can see,
the Etruscans had their own version as
demonstrated in this Divine Mirror.html.
Turan was key to the Helen of Troy story.
Helen's mother, Ralna, appears as Nemesis.
Her name appears to decline: RAL, RALNA,
RALNE, as seen in Etruscan_GlossaryA.xls,
in scripts K and TC and a short text on a
small bronze disk from Algeria.
The story revealed through the Divine
Mirror.html is the only information we
have on Turan from the Etruscans. As we
examine more mirrors we find that she and
Heracles are popular characters on the
mirrors, and like the Divine Mirror other
mirrors tend to cast a particular,
Etruscan slant on the story. Many of the
Etruscan mirrors examined to date appear
to tie into a Trojan War theme. Script MR
has Minerva, Hercules, Eris and Thetis.
Eris and Thetis are connected through the
story of the golden apple thrown to the
guests of Thetis and Peleus' wedding by an
irate Eris, who was the only one of the
gods on Olympus that was not invited to
the wedding. The golden apple was the
cause of the Trojan War. Hercules is not
specifically mentioned in this story,
except he was probably one of the gods at
the wedding. Thus, the special interest
occasioned by the image of Heracles on the
mirror, MR, suggests more to the tale.
Mirror, Script MM, is another that links
an unusual group of characters, including
Helen of Troy, Pheris, the king who
refused to give his life for his son,
Admetus, and Orestes, the eldest son of
Agamemnon who was advised by Apollo to
take revenge upon his father's murderers:
Agamemnon's wife and Orestes' mother,
Clytemnestra, and her lover. The Grace
representing splendor, Aglaea, is pictured
on this mirror, with Helen, along with
another character, Meple, whom I cannot
identify at this moment.
Another mirror, Script MH, shows Minerva
and Heracles involved with a three headed
serpent with claw feet. Heracles has a
plant in cradled in his left arm, as the
monster wraps around him. Here the
Etruscans are remembering another variant
to the story, since the myth involves
Heracles' 11th labor, to steal the golden
apples of the Hesperides. The apples were
guarded by a hundred-headed monster. The
two versions of the story have Heracles
beguiling Atlas into stealing the golden
apples for him and the other describes
Heracles killing the monster himself and
stealing the golden apples. In both
versions of the story, however, Minerva
played no role in the theft of the apples.
King Eurystheus, upon receiving the apples
from Heracles, quickly gave them back, so
Heracles dedicated them to Minerva who
decided to return the golden apples to
their rightful owner.
We can see that the Etruscan mirrors –
found by archeologists from central France
to the shores of the Black Sea – were
quite popular in the Mediterranean world.
Further, the imagery on the mirrors
represented complex tales. The artisans of
the mirrors excelled in not only rendering
beautiful art forms but also putting
together figures that conveyed complex
stories, such as combining the story of
Orestes with Pheres and Helen of Troy
(Script MM). If we knew who Meple is,
perhaps the story line of the mirror would
be clearer. At the moment it appears that
the artist is conveying the connection
between Helen's abduction and the Trojan
War and the fate of Orestes. With Splendor
being in attendance we must look at the
connection from the standpoint that both
Orestes and Helen lived out their lives in
splendor, in spite of the deaths imposed
on their lives. The old man Pheres does
not fit into this mold, however, and is
remembered in ignominy for not being
willing to give his life for his son,
Admetus, leaving Admetus' wife, Alcestis,
to give her life for her husband. This
tragedy is also recorded by the Etruscans
in Script
V, "Alcestis and Admetus." .
Mirrors MR, MM and MH are discussed at
"Etruscan Phrases" Miscellaneous_Scripts.c.html.
TVRAN,
HERCLE & EPE OR
TVRAN And
HERCLE (Hercules, Heracles) establish the
value of the character "D" which is read
as an "R."
"VR" is read as "OR."LASA seems to be the
name of a household God. In Latin the
household gods were called Lares or Lases.
RACVN may be the verb to recount, thus:
"to the household goddess they recount"
Rac-racar is a frequently used verb in the
Etruscan scripts.
 While not all the
names are clear we can surmise that the characters
in the mirror are related. Those on the top floor
are related. Turan appears to be (Greek) Aphrodite
(Roman, Venus). According to Homer she was the
daughter of Zeus and Dione. Tinia – Tini is the
Etruscan equivalent of Zeus (Roman Jupiter).
Heracles is presenting a child, Epe Or to Tinia.
Epe Or appears to be the god Eros, who is
accounted by Homer as being the son of Aphrodite.
Hesiod claims that Eros was one of the original
gods, brother of Chaos, Tartaras (Hades) and Ge
(Earth). Next to Ralna is a goose. Ralna is
probably Greek, Nemesis, the goddess who was
chased to Crete by Zeus. Zeus changed into many
forms and finally became a swan before he caught
up with Nemesis, who had changed into a goose.
Zeus raped Nemesis and the egg produced from that
union was given to the wife of the king of Sparta,
Leda. Leda raised the gossling with her husband,
King Tyndareüs, and it turned into the most
beautiful woman in the world, whose suitors came
to Sparta from all over the Greek lands.
Heracles' relationship to Aphrodite and Eros seems
to involve two weddings and two abductions. Here,
as with the stories we have seen in other Etruscan
mirrors, there is a more complex plot being
conveyed, and the key to the plot is in the
cherubim in the arms of Heracles. It is the
cherubim Eros, in fact, that initiated the Trojan
War, for it was he who caused Paris to fall in
love with Queen Helen of Sparta, who was then
married to Agamemnon's brother, Menelaus. It turns
out that Paris' love for Helen began with in the
"Judgment of Paris" (described on another Etruscan
mirror). After Eris (Strife) threw her golden
apple into the wedding of Thetis and Peleus with
the inscription, "For the fairest" Hera, Aphrodite
and Athena immediately claimed the apple. Zeus,
wishing to avoid trouble, commanded the goddesses
to present themselves to Paris, the world's
handsomest man, and let him decide which was the
loveliest. The young man was keeping his flocks on
Mount Ida when Hermes appeared (and some say
Apollo as well) leading the three goddesses.
Hermes explained the situation.
The idea of relying on the judge's unbiased
opinion seems not to have occurred to anyone, for
the contestants immediately began to offer bribes
to the judge. Hera promised to make Paris ruler of
the world if he would award her the apple. Athena
vowed that he would always be victorious in war if
he chose her. Aphrodite, a goddess of love, had
less imposing gifts at her disposal, but what she
had to offer was well suited to Paris'
temperament: the love of the most beautiful woman
in the world. This was Helen, daughter of
Tyndareus, the former king of Sparta, who had had
most of the young princes of Greece as her suitors
before she chose Menelaus for his money. Paris
hesitated hardly a moment before ruling that
Aphrodite was the loveliest of the goddesses.
While it is presumed that Paris was thus compelled
to visit Helen and Menelaus in their palace in
Sparta, because Aphrodite fulfilled her part of
the bargain, we don't know how Paris was compelled
to fall in love with Helen and abduct her. We know
that Helen's father, King Tyndareus, king of
Argos, had failed to honor Aphrodite to her
satisfaction. In revenge Aphrodite arranged that
his three daughters, Helen, Clytemnestra and
Timandra, should all betray their husbands. Early
in his life Tyndareus was expelled from Sparta,
with his friend Icarius, by Hippocoön
(brother of Tyndareus) and his twelve sons. Later
he was restored to his throne by Heracles who,
pursuing a quarrel of his own, had killed
Hippocoön and all his sons. Several
generations after Tyndareus, the descendants of
Heracles conquered Sparta, claiming that Heracles
had merely given the throne to Tyndareus in trust
for his own sons.
When Tyndareus decided to find a husband for his
daughter Helen, nearly all of the eligible young
princes of Greece wanted to marry her, who was
famous for her extraordinary beauty. The suitors
turned out to be a headstrong company and
Tyndareus feared that there would be trouble once
he made his choice. He asked Odysseus for advice
and in return for it he offered to support
Odysseus' suit for Penelope with her father,
Icarius. Following Odysseus' counsel, he made the
suitors take an oath, standing on pieces of a
horse, as was the custom on particularly solemn
occasions. By this oath, each was bound to abide
by Tyndareus' decision and, moreover, to punish
anyone who tried to take Helen by force or harm
the chosen husband. (Helen had earlier been
abducted by Theseus and his companion, Peirithous,
who was son of the Lapith king Ixion)
We find in our investigation of the Trojan War
that it was not the rebuff of Eris concerning the
wedding of Peleus and Thetis that caused the war,
it was the oath Tyndareus required of the suitors.
And we can say that the oath was caused by
Theseus' abduction of Helen, and some say that
Helen bore him a child, Iphigenia. Helen's sister,
Clytemnestra (who is usually called Iphegenia's
mother by Agamemnon) adopted the infant because of
Helen's youth).
But how is it that Theseus caused the Trojan War
by being the first to abduct Helen? The answer to
the first cause of the Trojan War involves
Peirithous. It seems that Peirithous had heard so
many tales of Theseus' exploits that he determined
to test the truth of his reputation for courage.
He therefore stole a herd of cattle at Marathon
and, when Theseus came in pursuit, returned to
confront him. Instead of fighting, the two were so
taken with each other's bearing that they swore
eternal friendship. At Peirithous' invitation
Theseus attended the Lapith's wedding to
Hippodameia and assisted him in his battle with
the Centaurs. This misfortune occurred when,
getting drunk during the festivities, the Centaurs
tried to carry off the Lapith women, including the
bride (A portion of this event is recalled in
Etruscan Phrases Script MS, "Icarius," the
first disciple of Dionysus. Icarius set off to
teach the world the art of wine making, but was
murdered by a group of shepherds who got drunk.
The next event in the spread of Dionysus' religion
and wine making involved the Centaurs. Script MS
carries an unusual composition with the Centaurs
being harnessed to Icarius' chariot, as he set off
to spread the art of wine making. Thus, Theseus'
defense of Lapiths at wedding was the cause of the
Trojan War.
Peirithous, who had inherited some of his father's
impious rashness, seems to have had an unfortunate
influence on his now middle-aged friend, for
Theseus' customary common sense deserted him
during the last years of his life and the two
enterprises that the pair carried out together
turned out disastrously for both. They decided
first that they would kidnap Helen, a daughter of
Zeus who had been adopted by Tyndareus, king of
Sparta. Some say that Theseus wanted to be related
to the Dioscuri, Helen's brothers; others claim
that he and Peirithous had vowed that they would
marry daughters of Zeus and that they would aid
each other in fulfilling this ambition.
They met with little difficulty in carrying off
Helen, who was only ten or twelve years old at the
time. Theseus took her to the town of Aphidnae, in
Attica, and left her in the charge of his mother,
Aethra, while he went off to keep his part of the
compact by helping Peirithous to win a bride.
During their absence the Dioscuri, with a force of
Spartans and Arcadians, took Aphidnae and perhaps
sacked Athens as well. They not only rescued their
sister but carried off Aethra to be her nurse (for
Helen and Theseus' daughter Iphigenia).
Of the many daughters of Zeus that Peirithous
might have chosen to abduct, he had hit upon the
most unlikely and dangerous bride: Persephone,
queen of Hades. Theseus, bound by vows to aid his
friend in this suicidal scheme, went with him down
into the Underworld, through the entrance at
Taenarum. The two sat down on stone chairs before
Hades and became frozen to them. Some say that the
seat they sat on was the seat of Lethe
(Forgetfulness). Later Theseus was rescued from
Hades by Heracles, when Heracles went down to
Hades to bring up Cerberus, the three-headed dog
that guarded its gates, in his twelfth and final
labor. He escaped with the fiendish dog and
Theseus but was not able to rescue Peirithous,
though he tried.
So it is that Theseus had been the cause by which
Tyndareus required an oath by the suitors of Helen
to take revenge against anyone that takes Helen by
force or harm the chosen husband. Tyndareus then
gave his daughter to Menelaus, brother of King
Agamemnon, who had brought the finest gifts. But
because Tyndareus had once forgotten Aphrodite
when sacrificing to the gods, the goddess punished
him by making three of his four daughters
unfaithful to their husbands. Timandra deserted
Echemus for Phyleus, son of Augeias; Helen went
off to Troy with Paris while Menelaus was
attending his grandfather's funeral in Crete;
Clytemnestra and her lover, Aegisthus, murdered
her husband, Agamemnon, on his return from Troy.
When Orestes avenged his father on her, some say
that it was Tyndareus who brought against him the
charge of matricide.
Because of the image of the cherubim, EPE OR (EPE
VR) in this panel, we are compelled to recall how
Turan (Aphrodite) probably caused Paris
(Alexandar) and Helen to fall in love. She
probably sent her son, Eros (L. Amor or Cupid).
According to Hesiod's Theogony [120-122,
201] Eros existed almost from the beginning of
time, being born, together with Ge (Earth) and
Tartarus, of, or at the same time as, Chaos. Far
from being Aphrodite's roguish little boy, as he
appears in the works of later writers, Eros was on
hand to greet that goddess at her birth. Shown in
Greek art as a beautiful youth, he seems to have
been worshipped, particularly at the Boeotian city
of Thespiae, as a god of love and loyalty between
young men. Later writers depict Eros as the
youngest of the gods, an archer whose gold-tipped
arrows could make even gods fall in love.
According to Ovid's Metamorphosis it was
he who made the cold-hearted god Hades love
Persephone. Annoyed because Apollo had advised him
to leave archery to men, he shot the god, making
him fall in love with Daphne and at Persephone's
prompting Eros made Medea fall in love with Jason.
The best known myth of Eros is that of his love of
Psyche. Eros is sometimes spoken of in the plural
(Erotes). In art these "loves" are generally shown
as small winged spirits such as might have escaped
from Pandora's jar. The name, Eros is mentioned in
the Tavola Eugubine, Scripts N, Q and R.
EPE
VR, TINIA and RALNA or THALNA and the goose.
TINIA carries a
staff which is similar to oriental, Akkadian
etc., staffs representing a tree and spear that
resemble oriental abstractions of lightening
bolt rods in the form of a tree. It combines the
idea of the Tree of Life with the powers of
Heaven, lightening and thunder. Both Zeus and
Jupiter, as with the oriental supreme beings,
threw lightening bolts.
AECAI, MEAN,
ELKINTRE & ELINAI
In
the middle panel we see in the center enthroned
ELINAI (Helen).  According
to the story of Helen, Zeus fell in love with
Nemesis (some versions say Leda) and Nemesis
fled away from Zeus, taking the form of a goose.
Zeus changed himself into a swan and caught up
with the goose. As a result she laid an egg in a
grove in Sparta. Shepherds found the egg and
took it to Leda, wife of King Tyndareüs.
After Helen was hatched from the egg Leda reared
her as her own daughter.
ELINAI, MENeLE,
ACHMEMNVN & LASA THIMRAE
In the panel Helen is the
center of the story which eventually leads to
her being abducted and carried off to Troy by
the Trojan prince, Paris (Alexander). His
name, Elchintre, appears to be the Etruscan
spelling of Alexander.  Helen is shown
wearing a Phrygian/Lydian helmet, and far to
the left of her, dressed in a leopard skin and
wearing a Phrygian helmet is a person named
AECAI. Note the suffix, ai, in both AECAI and
HELENAI. Helen's name is spelled HELENEI in Script MM). Aecai might
be Aeacus-i, king of Aegina, grandfather of
Achilles – after death a judge in the infernal
regions. Aeacus, a son of Zeus and Aegina, had
a wide-spread reputation for piety and respect
for justice. With regard to his role in Troy,
Apollo, brother of Artemis, and Poseidon,
asked him to help build the walls. Just when
the walls were erected three snakes attacked
them, and the only wall that could be
penetrated by the snakes was that built by
Aeacus (the two snakes that attacked the walls
of Poseidon and Apollo fell dead, whereas the
third snake entered Troy through Aeacus'
wall.) Apollo interpreted this
omen to mean that the descendants of
Aeacus (the Myrmidons, from Greek, myrmex,
"ant") would bring destruction to Troy
during three generations. The
Myrmidons included Aeacus' son, Peleus, and
his son, Achilles, who led the Myrmidon
contingent against the Trojans.
We have another mirror
relating to Helen, showing a
declension ELINA, where it
appears that Helen is being given a pouch
full of potions directly by Turan, while
Alexander (Paris), Etr. ELCHINTRE, is
watching:
Script ML Mirror from Louvre, Paris (Image
courtesy of academia.edu/JuliannaLees)
ML-1 ELINA Helen of Troy. Note
that ELINA declines:
ELINAI (Script DM-8)
and ELINEI (Script MM-1).
ML-2 TVRAN - Aphrodite / Venus
ML-3 ELCINTRE - Alexander (Paris)
Helen of Troy is
being presented with perhaps a potion
that will make her fall in love with
Paris (also known as Alexander; Etr.
ELCINTRE, ELCHINTRE, and other
spellings. Presenting Helen
(ELENA) is Aphrodite (Etr. TVRAN).
With this mirror we have a further peek
into Etruscan declension patterns.
In two other mirrors Helen's name is
spelled ELINAI (DM-8) and ELINEI
(MM-1). In Mirror ML her name
appears to be in the 1st Decl.
Nominative (-a) or Ablative (-a) case,
denoting that she is either the subject
of the story or that she is the means by
which the action is performed (usually
represented in English, for, by or
with). The action that is being
performed is the moment Aphrodite causes
Helen to fall in love with Paris.
In script DM AECAI,
is probably the son of King Priam of Troy who
prophesied that Paris would bring destruction
to Troy. His name, was Aesacus, son of Priam
by Arisbe. There is an interesting refrain
from the work, "Alexandra," by Lycophron of
Calchis (3rd century B.C.) that refers to the
firebrand upon Troy voiced through Aesacus:
Alexandra (31) "...I
see thee hapless city, fired a second time
by Aeaceian hands..."
We can compare this
passage to others from the same work:
Alexandra (219) "...And
would that my father had not spurned the
nightly terrors of the oracle of Aesacus..."
"...wherein
one day hereafter the Tymphaean dragon, even
the king of the Aethices, shall at a feast
destroy Heracles sprung from the seed of
Aeacus and Perseus and no stranger to the
blood of Temenus..."
Heracles' mother was
married to Amphitryon, son of Perseus' son
Alcaeus. Heracles was originally called
Alcaeus. Lycophron may have made an
intentional slip in his reference to the seed
of Aeacus as relating to Heracles. Laomedon
neglected to pay Aeacus, Poseidon and Apollo
for rebuilding the walls of Troy, and Poseidon
punished him by sending a sea-monster to
ravage the land. An oracle told Laomedon that
this threat, the the plague sent at the time
by Apollo, would end only if he offered his
daughter Hesione to the monster. When the
Argonauts were returning home from Colchis,
Heracles was in the crew and they stopped at
Troy. Hearing about the plight of Hesione, who
had been chained to a rock in sacrifice to the
sea-monster, Heracles offered to rescue her.
Payment to Heracles would be the girl and the
handsome mares Zeus had given to the king when
he carried off the king's son Ganymede. After
Heracles killed the monster and freed the
girl, Laomedon refused to pay the debt.
Heracles did not have enough of a force to
make war on Troy, so he sailed away,
threatening vengeance at a later date.
According to Diodorus Siculus (1st century
B.C.) Heracles made war with Laomedon:
Diodorus: HERACLES WAR
AGAINST LAOMEDON
[4.32.1] After this Heracles, returning to
the Peloponnesus, made war against Ilium
since he had a ground of complaint against
its king, Laomedon. For when Heracles was on
the expedition with Jason to get the golden
fleece and had slain the sea-monster,
Laomedon had withheld from him the mares
which he had agreed to give him and of which
we shall give a detailed account a little
later in connection with the Argonauts.87
[4.32.4] Laomedon then withdrew and joining
combat with the troops of Heracles near the
city he was slain himself and most of the
soldiers with him. Heracles then took the
city by storm and after slaughtering many of
its inhabitants in the action he gave the
kingdom of the Iliadae to Priam because of
his sense of justice.
[4.32.5] For Priam was the only one of the
sons of Laomedon who had opposed his father
and had counseled him to give the mares back
to Heracles, as he had promised to do. And
Heracles crowned Telamon with the meed of
valour by bestowing upon him Hesionê
the daughter of Laomedon, for in the siege
he had been the first to force his way into
the city, while Heracles was assaulting the
strongest section of the wall of the
acropolis.
HERACLES WAR AGAINST HIPPOCOON
[4.33.5] After this Hippocoön exiled
from Sparta his brother Tyndareüs, and
the sons of Hippocoön, twenty in
number, put to death Oeonus who was the son
of Licymnius and a friend of Heracles;
whereupon Heracles was angered and set out
against them, and being victorious in a
great battle he made a slaughter of every
man of them. Then, taking Sparta by storm he
restored Tyndareüs, who was the father
of the Dioscori, to his kingdom and bestowed
upon him the kingdom on the ground that it
was his by right of war, commanding him to
keep it safe for Heracles’ own descendants.
Priam, Christened
Podarces, was the son of Laomedon was named
Priam from the word priamus ("to buy") when
ransomed from Heracles by his sister Hesione.
He succeeded his father as king of the
wealthy city of Troy. He had children by many
women. He married Arisbe, daughter of Merops,
king of Percote, and had a son, Aesacus. Later
he gave Arisbe to his ally Hyrtacus and
married Hecuba, daughter of Dymas, of Cisseus,
or of the river Sangarius by Metope. Hecuba
bore Priam a son, Hector, who became the
champion of Troy. When she was about to give
birth to a second child, Hecuba, dreamed that
she gave birth to a firebrand that burned
Troy. Aesacus, who had diviner's powers, told
Priam to expose the child at birth (a way of
killing unwanted children). The court had
presumed Paris to be dead until, as a young
man, he appeared in the palace and was
recognized by Cassandra, Paris' sister by
Hecuba. Cassandra had aquired a gift of
prophecy when she had slept overnight in the
Thimbraean Apollo. The temple got its name
from the river Thimbra and the plain named
from it that was near Troy. This name is
probably that relating to the winged goddess
LASA THIMRAE (at DM-12). The prophesy of the
firebrand had been forgotten by the time
Alexander returned to the palace, so the
long-lost child was readmitted to the family.
During the Trojan War Hector, firstborn of
Hecuba, was chased around the walls of Troy
and killed by Achilles. Achilles refused to
give up Hector's body for burial, but the old
man, Priam, driving a mule-cart to the Achaean
camp, was able to ransom the body. Achilles
was subsequently killed by Paris, and there
are several versions to the story how he was
killed, one being from an arrow of Paris.
Before
the war, Paris (Alexander) was invited to visit
Menelaus and Helen in Sparta. Shortly after
Paris arrived in Sparta, Menelaus, husband of
Helen, was called off to Crete to attend his
[wife's] grandfather's funeral. During his
absence Helen and Paris fell in love, as a
result of a potion or arrow administered by Eros
at Aphrodite's direction; and off they went to
Troy, carrying with them many possessions of
Menelaus. Paris' other name is Alexander,
spelled here as ELCHINTRE; in another mirror,
MG-4, Alexander's name is spelled ELCINTRE and
in mirror OB-4 it is spelled ELACHSNTRE; at CK-2
it is spelled ELCHSUNTRE (See
Etruscan_GlossaryA.xls).
LASA THIMRAE is probably the Lasa of the
Thimbraean Apollo. (See introduction of
this page) She recalls Cassandra, whom
Propertius, in his Elegies, describes as a
maenad. Our earlier thought was that LASA
THIMRAE is "probably "lasa, household goddess
(L. lasa) Hemera, Day, goddess of the day. This
connection is perhaps more romantic than that of
the Temple of Thimbraean Apollo. However, in
comparing the character "TH" as used for the
goddess to the "H" used in Heracles' name, we
have no doubt that the name is LASA THIMRAE. The
household goddess, LASA THIMRAE, carries a wand
of prophesy in her right hand and in the left
hand what appears to be an alabaster unguent
bottle, seen frequently being carried in ladies'
hands in Etruscan murals. A wand and purse are
mentioned many times in the Zagreb Mummy Script,
Script Z. We know that Agamemmnon paid a
substantial dowry to King Tyndareüs for the
hand of Helen in marriage to his brother
Menelaüs. In the middle panel we see an
alarmed AECAI and on the right a household
goddess, LASA THIMRAE, making her exit with the
wand of prophesy and a money purse or unguent
bottle. Because of the image of MEAN (Diana /
Artemis) crowning Alexander we believe that the
theme of this panel of the mirror deals with the
anointing of Alexander as husband of Helen at
the time Helen agrees to marry Menelaus. For the
record, as it may still have some oblique
connection, our earlier comment on LASA THIMRAE,
referring to her as HIMRAE, said,
"Himera was born, together with
Aether, from Erebus (Darkness) and Nyx
(Night), and regularly emerged from Tartarus
as Nyx entered it, and returned as Nyx was
leaving. Since Eos (Dawn) was thought of as
accompanying the Sun as well as heralding his
rising, she tended to usurp the functions of
Hemera and was often identified with her. In
this mirror she is exiting the room, and if
she is Day, then what follows is Nyx (Night).
Nyx was born, together with Erebus (Darkness),
Ge (Earth), Tartarus and Eros (Love), out of
Chaos. Apart from Aether (Upper Air) and
Hemera (Day) she spawned a large and generally
unpleasant brood that included Moros (Doom),
Thanatos (Death), Hypnos (Sleep), the Fates,
and Nemesis.
"Knowing that HIMRAE is leaving the room where
terrible betrayals and bargaining is taking
place, the story here is clear: As HIMRAE
leaves the room love will take over and bring
forth Chaos. There will be Doom, Death and,
for those wondering where it all began, you
can look to RALNA (Nemesis) who was desired by
Zeus at one time. She changed into verious
forms in order to escape him and when she
changed into a goose he changed into a swan,
caught her and raped her. The result of this
union was an egg that was given to Leda, the
wife of King Tyndareus. The egg hatched into
Helen, the most beautiful woman in the world.
Thus, we have many directions to which the
tale on this divine mirror points. And we have
only discussed some of them! What master
storytellers the Etruscans were, to have put
all this into one mirror!"
MEAN
(Latin Maenaas-idis [f], a bacchante, a
prophetess) is probably Artemis (the Romans
called her Diana). Homer
(Iliad
ii. ; v. 43, xi. 431) refers to the inhabitants
of Lydia as Maiones (Μαίονες). Homer
describes their capital not as Sardis but as Hyde
(Iliad xx. ) [See wikipedia.org and
www.maravot.com/Lydian.html] Based upon
this mirror we may wonder how this Trojan
Diana / Artemis came to be called Mean,
recognizing that the great temple of Ephesian
Artemis was nearby. We note that the Ephesian
Artemis was sculpted as a woman with many
breasts, who would certainly not connote a
"virgin huntress," but rather the opposite, a
mother goddess. However, Diodorus Siculus
says:
Diodorus: EILEITHYIA,
ARTEMIS & THE HOURS
[5.73.4] Eileithyia received care of
expectant mothers and the alleviation of the
travail of childbirth; and for this reason
women when they are in perils of this nature
call first of all upon this goddess.
[5.73.5] And Artemis, we are told,
discovered how to effect the healing of
young children and the foods which are
suitable to the nature of babes, this being
the reason why she is also called
Kourotrophos.
Of interest is the fact that in the
story of the Argonauts and Iphiginia, daughter
of Agamemnon, Iphiginia is supposed to be
sacrificed to Artemis for Agamemnon's
boasting. At the last minute a deer nearby was
sacrificed upon the altar in lieu of
Iphiginia, and the girl was whisked off to the
Taurians along the Hellespont where she served
as high priest of Artemis. It was a practice
by the king of the Taurians to sacrifice
foreigners in the temple of Artemis, and when
Jason and the Argonauts arrived on the king's
coast, Iphiginia helped them escape the
sacrificial fire.
Diodorus Siculus provides another clue to the
identity of MEAN and her act of crowning
Alexander, as he says that Helen crowned
Menelaus:
Diodorus:
[78] LXXVIII. TYNDAREUS
Tyndareus, son of Oebalus, by Leda, daughter
of Thestius, became father of Clytemnestra
and Helen; he gave Clytemnestra in marriage
to Agamemnon, son of Atreus. Because of her
exceeding beauty many suitors from many
states sought Helen in marriage. Tyndareus,
since he feared that Agamemnon might divorce
his daughter Clytemnestra, and that discord
might arise from this, at the advice of
Ulysses bound himself by an oath, and gave
Helen leave to put a wreath on whomever she
wished to marry. She put it on Menelaus, and
Tyndareus gave her to him in marriage and at
his death left him his kingdom.
MEAN and LASA THIMRAE represent an
early Etruscan version of the Trojan War, and
it is interesting that this Divine_Mirror
shows Artemis placing the laurel wreath on
Alexander's head while Helen is shaking hands
with Agamemnon, giving her hand in marriage to
Menelaus.
Next to MEAN is a
deer, a sign of Artemis. Artemis has ancient
Asian origins and is identified with Ishtar and
Isis, Queens of Heaven, and the Persian Aniate.
There was enmity between Artemis and Agamemnon.
Agamemnon's father, Atreus, failed to sacrafice
the best lamb of his flock to the goddess.
Though he had promised it to her, when it was
born it had golden fleece, and he hid it instead
of sacrificing it. Also, to make matters worse,
Agamemnon used to boast that he could hunt
better than Artemis. The golden fleece appears
to have ended up in Colchis, carried there by
Phrixus, who rode a ram with golden fleece to
Colchis and hung its golden fleece on a tree in
the sacred grove of Colchis. Jason and the
Argonauts voyaged to Colchis to capture that
fleece.
VR (OR) is
mentioned in the Tavola Eugubine at locations R8
and Q218:
R8:
NASIER VR NASIER: Vø (OPH) TRE TIE--Note
that the mother of Zeus was Rhea or Rheia, whom
the Romans called Ops.
Q218:
PATRE: PVNES ESTE VR 8ETA MANV
In
the middle frame Queen Helen, ELINAI, is shaking
hands with ACHMEMNVN. Her betrothed, Menelaus,
is the man behind the arms of Helen and
Agamemnon who are shaking hands on the marriage
contract. In the story, when most of the men in
the kingdom were suing for the hand of
Clytemnestra's sister, Helen, the Queen of
Sparta, King Agamemnon, husband of Clytemnestra,
wanted Helen to be married to his brother,
Menelaus, and urged the (mortal) father of
Helen, who is King Tyndareüs, to let Helen
make the choice as to whom she would wed. She
chose Menelaus because of his riches, as
Agamemnon hoped she would. As noted Helen was
later abducted by Paris the Trojan prince and
taken to Troy, causing the Trojan war. This was
also prophesied and in fact arranged by
Aphrodite who had promised him as a reward the
hand of the most beautiful woman in the world.
There was some dissension among Aphrodite, Hera,
the wife of Zeus and Athena, the daughter of
Zeus who sprang out of his head when it was
cleaved with an axe by either Prometheus or
Hephaestus. They argued over who was the fairest
among them. They decided to invite Paris to the
judgment. Hera promised Paris that she would
reward him with the kingship of the earth;
Athena promised him that he would never lose a
battle and Aphrodite promised him that he would
be given the hand of the most beautiful woman in
the world. Paris chose Aphrodite as the fairest
among the three.
MORE
ABOUT TVRAN (Turan) Greek, Aphrodite
Turan
is Venus (Roman) / Aphrodite (Greek). However,
there are some characteristics about her that
need to be reconciled. First of all, I have not
found any record showing a connection between
Hercules and Aphrodite. Aphrodite is considered
by most accounts as the mother of Eros, and she
was called upon to use her winged cherub Eros to
cause strange love affairs. Why Hercules is in
the panel offering what appears to be Eros to
Tinia is a mystery. That Turan was involved in
the abduction of Helen by Alexander is clear.
But Hercules had nothing to do with it according
to all other accounts. He was involved in a
deadly confrontatation with Priam's father.
Laomedon.
This is the extent to which Hercules was
involved in the affairs of the Trojan War, and
there is no indication that he was involved with
Aphrodite, who took sides with the Trojans and
defended Paris to the last (because he judged
her more beautiful than Hera or Athena).
However, Heracles was indirectly involved in the
bargain when he gave Tydareus Sparta, noted by
Diodorus above: Then,
taking Sparta by storm he restored
Tyndareüs, who was the father of the
Dioscori, to his kingdom and bestowed upon
him the kingdom on the ground that it was
his by right of war, commanding him to keep
it safe for Heracles’ own descendants.
The judgment of
Paris was initiated by Eris (Strife) who threw a
golden apple bearing the inscription, "to the
fairest" into the middle of the wedding of
Peleus and the goddess Thetis. She was upset
because she had not been invited to the wedding.
Hera, Athena and Aphrodite claimed the apple,
and it was left to Paris, the most handsome man
in the world, to judge who was the fairest of
the three. He chose Aphrodite and his reward was
the hand of the most beautiful woman in the
world, Helen of Troy.
Another interesting Etruscan mirror shows TVRAN riding a
swan. We know that Aphrodite helped Zeus rape
Nemesis, the mother of Helen, by changing into
the form of an eagle and chasing Zeus who had
changed into a swan, who was chasing Nemesis who
had changed into the form of a goose. The swan
caught the goose and she produced an egg that
hatched not an ugly duckling but Helen of Troy.
So what is Turan doing riding on a swan? In the
Etruscan version of the story it appears that
rather than changing into the form of an eagle  she got on
the back of the swan and rode it after Nemesis.
The mirror of Turan riding a swan is from the
Louvre, Paris. The image below from the Ara
Pacis of what appears to be Demeter / Ceres
flanked by a lady riding a swan is from
virginia.edu.
In addition, in the Divine Mirror TVRAN is
holding a staff topped with a pomegranate (if it
is an apple, it is the sign of Aphrodite who won
it in the Judgment of Paris).
The
pomegranate is the symbol of Persephone (Greek)
Proserpina (Roman) Phersipnei (Etruscan), wife
of Hades, and daughter of Demeter (Greek) Ceres
(Roman). Hades had abducted Persephone, some say
near Henna, Sicily, and taken her to the
underworld where he ruled. He allowed her to
return to the earth but suggested before she
does so she should eat and gave her a
pomegranate seed (some say she ate seven seeds).
Demeter, upon seeing her daughter again (she had
wandered the earth in search of her), learned
that Persephone had eaten in Hades and groaned,
because she knew that anyone that eats in Hades
is doomed to stay there. But as it turns out
Persephone was required to spend a third – some
say half – of the year with her husband Hades
(also called Pluto). In contrast, another
vegetation god, Adonis, had a similar fate, but
was to spend one third of the year in Hades, one
third with Persephone, and one third of the year
with Aphrodite.
We can see through a panel of the Ara
Pacis an image of what appears to be Ceres
flanked on either side by two figures, one of
which is riding on a swan.
 |
| The
image from Ara Pacis is from virg.edu. Click on
image for a larger view. |
The
entire theme has to do with vegetation /
fertility, and since it is part of several
panels on a building displaying the heritage of
Julius Ceasar, the image would have to do with
the ancestor of their clan, who was Aeneas, born
from Aphrodite and Anchises, a member of the
royal line of Dardania. The lady on a swan
appears to be Persephone, since she is the
daughter of Demeter (Greek) Ceres (Roman).
However, the swan, together with the apple, is
the sign of Venus (Aphrodite). The swan is also
associated with Leda, the one to whom the egg
containing Helen of Troy, produced by Nemesis,
was delivered. Some versions say Zeus chased
Leda and it was Leda, rather than Nemesis, that
changed into the goose. But there were two eggs
involved, one containing Helen and the other
Castor and Polux (the Dioscuri).
The lady riding the swan in the Ara Pacis
would be Aphrodite and thus reflecting the image
of Turan riding upon a swan. The head of the
Roman pantheon was Jupiter and his consort was
Juno (Roman) Hera (Greek) Uni (Etruscan). We
have Uni represented in another Etruscan Mirror,
Uni Suckling Hercules. In
the Etruscan version Hercules is a grown man; in
the traditional Greek version he is a babe, as
shown below. Since there are two infants in the
image from the Ara Pacis, it would appear that
the mother goddess would be Juno (Roman) Uni
(Etruscan). Romulus and Remus, the twin-brothers
who founded Rome, were the supposed sons of the
god Mars and the priestess Rhea Silvia.
 If the
goddess suckling the two babes is Ceres, she
represents the Corn Goddess, of agriculture,
crops, initiation, civilization, the love a
mother bears for her child, protectress of
women, motherhood, marriage, etc. She is the
daughter of Saturn and Ops. She and her daughter
Proserpine were the counterparts of the Greek
goddesses Demeter and Persephone. Her worship
involved fertility rites and rites for the dead,
and her chief festival was the Cerealia. This
would make the female on her left Persephone
(Etruscan, Phersipnei – shown in the
Tomb of Orcus), who was the wife of Hades and
goddess of the underworld. Next to the goddess
is a long snake-like creature or sea monster.
Thetis, the mother of Achilles, the Greek hero
in the Trojan War who killed Hector, could be
represented here, since she was a Nereid of the
ocean, who interfered in the Trojan War to
defend her son Achilles (after he got actively
engaged in the war). It was the wedding of
Thetis, the Nereid, and the mortal Peleus, where
Eris threw the Golden Apple with the
inscription, "to the fairest," causing the
strife leading to the Trojan War.
Script OB
Another view of
Turan is in the Oberlin_Mirror image which
contains a scene on the judgment of Paris, where
the names of Alexandar,
Turan,
Uni and the fragment of Menerva (Minerva) are
inscribed above the engraved figures. The
drawing shown here is from "The Etruscans,"
Raymond Block, Frederick A. Praeger Publishers,
NY, 1969, Fig. 36.
OB-1 _ _ NRFA – Minerva's name appears at M13,
MANRIFA, the Magliano Disk and is Mirror #696 in
the British Museum carries the name MANFRA.
OB-2 VNI – Uni is mentioned in Z1654, TC171,
N173, N435, J25, AH-7, PL-31. Most importantly
is is listed in script PL, the Piacenza Liver.
OB-3 TVRAN – Besides the scripts on this page
Turan appears at M-8.
OB-4 – ELACHSNTRE (ELA   NTRE) is
spelled in the Divine Mirror.html: ELCHINTRE (ELINTRE).
Notes:
(1) Mythological
accounts are based upon "The Meridian Handbook
of Classical Mythology, Edward Tripp, Meridian
Book, New American Library, New York, 1970.
Updated
7.18.99; 12.4.99; 9.30.01; 3.29.04; 9.18.04;
4.06.05; 2.11.06; 8.15.06; 2.03.07; 12.07.07;
1.02.08; 1.15.09
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