... 'The traditions show that the residences of the king were fairly flexible. The building of new houses was obviously the result of (male) births in the royal family. In each case, the house that was built last is left to the newborn son and his mother, together with a specific servant, while the king has a new and separate residence constructed for himself ...

Throwing stick?

Phoenician gimel

Greek gamma

Γ (γ)

... In its unattested Proto-Canaanite form, the letter [gimel] may have been named after a weapon that was either a staff sling or a throwing stick, ultimately deriving from a Proto-Sinaitic glyph ... Bertrand Russell posits that the letter's form is a conventionalized image of a camel. The letter may be the shape of the walking animal's head, neck, and forelegs [cfr the way Taurus normally is depicted]. Barry B. Powell, a specialist in the history of writing, states 'It is hard to imagine how gimel = 'camel' can be derived from the picture of a camel ... The word gimel is related to gemul, which means 'justified repayment', or the giving of reward and punishment.

The Swedish word gammal means 'old' (and dry like a stick).

... Tu'i Tofua was the son of Vakafuhu. His mother was Langitaetaea, but she was only one of the many young women whom Vakafuhu had living behind the fences of his dwelling. When Tu'i Tofua grew he was given the first-born sons of all the wives for his companions, and they all used to play sika outside the enclosure of Vakafuhu. They made their sika of clean-peeled sticks and threw them in turn along the ground, they glanced them off a mound and each one tried to make the longest throw. One day while Vakafuhu was sleeping off a kava-drinking those boys were playing their game outside, and Tu'i Tofua threw his sika. Then indeed the enormous strength of Tu'i Tofua made that sika fly over the fences into his father's place. It landed where the women were and they all began to giggle, those girls, and shriek and laugh. They did this because they wanted that handsome youth to come among them, they desired him. More than his father they desired him. They fell with joy upon the sika of their master's son, and snapped it. When he came inside to get it back they called out things that made him embarrased. 'Haven't you got another long thing there, Tu'i?' those women said. 'This one's broken.' And they put their hands across their faces and they laughed ...

Egyptian door		Phoenician dalet		Greek delta	Δ (δ)
... Delta (uppercase Δ, lowercase δ) ... is the fourth letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 4. It was derived from the Phoenician letter Dalet. Letters that come from delta include Latin D and Cyrillic Д. A river delta (originally, the Nile River delta) is so named because its shape approximates the upper-case letter delta (the shape is a triangle) ... Dalet (dāleth, also spelled Daleth or Daled) is the fourth letter of many Semitic alphabets ... The letter is based on a glyph of the Middle Bronze Age alphabets, probably called dalt 'door' (door in Modern Hebrew is delet), ultimately based on a hieroglyph depicting a door. ... Sorrowing, then, the two women placed Osiris's coffer on a boat, and when the goddess Isis was alone with it at sea, she opened the chest and, laying her face on the face of her brother, kissed him and wept. The myth goes on to tell of the blessed boat's arrival in the marshes of the Delta, and of how Set, one night hunting the boar by the light of the full moon, discovered the sarcophagus and tore the body into fourteen pieces, which he scattered abroad; so that, once again, the goddess had a difficult task before her. She was assisted, this time, however, by her little son Horus, who had the head of a hawk, by the son of her sister Nephtys, little Anubis, who had the head of a jackal, and by Nephtys herself, the sister-bride of their wicked brother Set. Anubis, the elder of the two boys, had been conceived one very dark night, we are told, when Osiris mistook Nephtys for Isis; so that by some it is argued that the malice of Set must have been inspired not by the public virtue and good name of the noble culture hero, but by this domestic inadventure. The younger, but true son, Horus, on the other hand, had been more fortunately conceived - according to some, when Isis lay upon her dead brother in the boat, or, according to others, as she fluttered about the palace pillar in the form of a bird. The four bereaved and searching divinities, the two mothers and their two sons, were joined by a fifth, the moon-god Thoth (who appears sometimes in the form of an ibis-headed scribe, at other times in the form of a baboon), and together they found all of Osiris save his genital member, which had been swallowed by a fish. They tightly swathed the broken body in linen bandages, and when they performed over it the rites that thereafter were to be continued in Egypt in the ceremonial burial of kings, Isis fanned the corpse with her wings and Osiris revived, to become the ruler of the dead. He now sits majestically in the underworld, in the Hall of the Two Truths, assisted by forty-two assessors, one from each of the principal districts of Egypt; and there he judges the souls of the dead. These confess before him, and when their hearts have been weighed in a balance against a feather, receive, according to their lives, the reward of virtue and the punishment of sin ...

Egyptian jubilation

Phoenician he

Greek epsilon

Ε (ε)

Wikipedia points at the Egyptian gesture with arms held high as a Sign of jubilation, which may have been the origin (via Phoenician he) of epsilon.

Manacle

ziqq

Phoenician zayin

Greek zeta

Ζ (ζ)

... Zeta (uppercase Ζ, lowercase ζ; Greek: ζήτα ... is the sixth letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 7. It was derived from the Phoenician letter Zayin. Letters that arose from zeta include the Roman Z and Cyrillic З ...

Zayin (also spelled Zain or Zayn or simply Zay) is the seventh letter of many Semitic abjads ... It represents the sound [z]. The Phoenician letter appears to be named after a sword or other weapon. (In Biblical Hebrew, 'Zayin' means sword, and the verb 'Lezayen' means to arm. In modern Hebrew, 'zayin' means penis and 'lezayen' is a vulgar term which generally means to perform sexual intercourse and is used in a similar fashion to the English word fuck, although the older meaning survives in 'maavak mezuyan' (armed struggle) and 'beton mezuyan' (armed, i.e., reinforced concrete). The Proto-Sinaitic glyph according to Brian Colless may have been called ziqq, based on a hieroglyph depicting a 'manacle'.

Egyptian eye

Phoenician ayin

Greek omicron

Ο (ο)

... The letter name is derived from Proto-Semitic *‘ayn-, eye, and the Phoenician letter had an eye-shape, ultimately derived from the jr hieroglyph ... To this day, ‘ayin in Hebrew, Arabic and Maltese means 'eye' and 'spring' (‘ayno in Neo-Aramaic).

Greek omega

Ω (ω)

Omega ... is the 24th and last letter of the Greek alphabet. In the Greek numeric system, it has a value of 800. The word literally means 'great O' (ō mega, mega meaning 'great'), as opposed to omicron, which means 'little O' (o mikron, micron meaning 'little') ...

The form of the uppercase letter derives from that of an omicron (Ο) broken up at the side ... with the edges subsequently turned outward

The modern lowercase shape goes back to the uncial form

a form that developed during the 3rd century BC in ancient handwriting on papyrus, from a flattened-out form of the letter ... that had its edges curved even further upward

Possibly, I think, this flattened out form alluded to the high sky 'carapace' in summer. As to the 'broken up omikron' it could have been turned at is side as an allusion to the orientation of the Gemini pair. The uncial form could reflect a pair of twins joined together (at the star ω Gemini).

Egyptian courtyard

Phoenician heth

Greek eta

Η (η)

... The letter shape ultimately goes back to a hieroglyph for 'courtyard' ... possibly named hasir in the Middle Bronze Age alphabets, while the name goes rather back to hayt, the name reconstructed for a letter derived from a hieroglyph for 'thread'

... The kaikai are the rythmic songs that are sung to cat's cradles, the string games that are found not only throughout the Pacific but throughout the world. On premissionary Rapa Nui the kaikai, together with their corresponding cat's cradles, were not simple children's games but were used, among other things, to produce magic effect. They were highly important for the study of Rapa Nui's rongorongo. This is because it was apparently with the aid of cat's cradles that the rongorongo experts taught their pupils to learn many of the chants accompanying the incised inscriptions ...

... string games could be resumed after it was clear that the Sun had managed to leave the horizon and was rapidly gaining in altitude: 'Before the sun starts to leave the horizon ... when it shows only on the horizon, ... then string games were no longer allowed as they might lacerate the sun. Once the sun had started to go higher and could be seen in its entirety, string games could be resumed, if one so wished. So the restriction on playing string games was only applicable during the period between the sun's return and its rising fully above the horizon ...

Egyptian arm

Phoenician yodh

Greek iota

Ι (ι)

Yodh is thought to have originated with a pictograph of a hand, ultimately deriving from Proto-Semitic *yad-. It may be related to the Egyptian hieroglyphic of an arm. (Wikipedia)

Egyptian hand

Phoenician kaph

Greek kappa

Κ (κ)

Kaph is thought to have been derived from a pictogram of a hand (in both modern Arabic and modern Hebrew, kaph means palm/grip) ...

... The manik, with the tzab, or serpent's rattles as prefix, runs across Madrid tz. 22 , the figures in the pictures all holding the rattle; it runs across the hunting scenes of Madrid tz. 61, 62, and finally appears in all four clauses of tz. 175, the so-called 'baptism' tzolkin. It seems impossible, with all this, to avoid assigning the value of grasping or receiving. But in the final confirmation, we have the direct evidence of the signs for East and West. For the East we have the glyph Ahau-Kin, the Lord Sun, the Lord of Day; for the West we have Manik-Kin, exactly corresponding to the term Chikin, the biting or eating of the Sun, seizing it in the mouth.

The pictures (from Gates) show east, north, west, and south; respectively (the lower two glyphs) 'Lord' (Ahau) and 'grasp' (Manik). Manik was the 7th day sign of the 20 and Ahau the last ...

Egyptian menchet

Phoenician lamedh

Greek lambda

Λ (λ)

... Wikipedia has no information regarding the origin of the Phoenician lamedh, but the Egyptian 'cloth' hieroglyph (menchet) is - I suggest - related to the 4 upside down sky pillars. I.e. the basic element of the 'covering' hieroglyph could have indicated darkness:

... Men's spirits were thought to dwell in the Milky Way between incarnations. This conception has been handed down as an Orphic and Pythagorean tradition fitting into the frame of the migration of the soul. Macrobius, who has provided the broadest report on the matter, has it that souls ascend by way of Capricorn, and then, in order to be reborn, descend again through the 'Gate of Cancer'. Macrobius talks of signs; the constellations rising at the solstices in his time (and still in ours) were Gemini and Sagittarius: the 'Gate of Cancer' means Gemini ...

From the year 755 (when Cancer had been at July 11 according to the Mayas) to AD 1842 (my assumed baseline for the rongorongo texts) there were around (1842 - 755) / 71 = 15 precessional days. This seems to point to the time of the Bull, when in JANUARY 31 the old year would end (terminate). 192 (JULY 11) - 31 = 161 (JUNE 10):

... Midsummer is the flowering season of the oak, which is the tree of endurance and triumph, and like the ash is said to 'court the lightning flash'. Its roots are believed to extend as deep underground as its branches rise in the air - Virgil mentions this - which makes it emblematic of a god whose law runs both in Heaven and in the Underworld ... The month, which takes its name from Juppiter the oak-god, begins on June 10th and ends of July 7th. Midway comes St. John's Day, June 24th, the day on which the oak-king was sacrificially burned alive. The Celtic year was divided into two halves with the second half beginning in July, apparently after a seven-day wake, or funeral feast, in the oak-king's honour ...

... The Fijian barkcloth that in the end captures the chief represents his capture of the land: upon installation, he is said to hold the 'barkcloth of the land' (masi ni vanua). The barkcloth thus has deeper significance. In general ritual usage, barkcloth serves as 'the path of the god'. Hanging from the rafters at the rear, sacred end of the ancient temple, it is the avenue by which the god descends to enter the priest ... There is still more to the barkcloth. The barkcloth which provides access for the god/chief and signifies his sovereignity is the preeminent feminine valuable (i yau) in Fiji. It is the highest product of woman's labor, and as such a principal good of ceremonial exchange (soolevu). The chief's accession is mediated by the object that saliently signifies women ...

Egyptian sebchet		Phoenician pe		Greek pi	Π (π)
Wikipedia: '... according to a theory by Theodor Nöldeke from 1904, some of the letter names were changed in Phoenician from the Proto-Canaanite script ... pit 'corner' to pe 'mouth' ...' However, I think the Egyptian source hieroglyph could have been Gardiner's O14 (sebchet), a sign which illustrates a corner with feather-like ornaments upon the walls. The meaning was 'portal' according to Wilkinson. Or why not an Archway for exit, the Mayas had a 'grasping hand' (Chikin) in the west: To be in a corner means there is no way forward.

Egyptian tusk

Phoenician shin

Greek sigma

Σ (σ, ς)

Wikipedia: Shin (also spelled Šin (šīn) or Sheen) literally means 'teeth, 'press', and 'sharp' ...

The symbol Σ is currently used as an expression for 'sum'. The Phoenician shin is oriented in another way, similar to how Cassiopeia is read in the night when in a low position - as Celestial W when below the pole, in contrast to the Celestial M when above it.

Greek sigma therefore resembles Cassiopeia in between, when she was in the west at the time when the Sun was rising in the east.

Egyptian nfr

Phoenician teth

Greek theta

Θ (θ)

... The form of the letter θ suggests a midline ('waist'), although the origin of θ is the Phoenician tēth which means 'wheel'. This in turn could have originated from a glyph named 'good' which in Egypt was nfr ...

... θ is the last star in the Ara constellation, and the ancient meaning of this letter was described as a wheel by the Phoenicians but for the Egyptian it meant 'good'. When the wheel of time has come full cycle around and the upside down fire-altar is in the past the times ahead should be good (or lucky Sa'ad) ...

According to Wilkinson nefer originally depicted the throat and heart of a sheep:

Egyptian bread, (-t, female determinant)

Phoenician qoph

Greek phi

Φ(φ)

... is the 21st letter of the Greek alphabet ... Its origin is uncertain but it may be that phi originated as the letter qoppa ... In traditional Greek numerals, phi has a value of 500 or 500000 ...

Isaac Taylor, History of the Alphabet: Semitic Alphabets, Part 1, 2003: 'The old explanation, which has again been revived by Halévy, is that it denotes an 'ape,' the character Q being taken to represent an ape with its tail hanging down. It may also be referred to a Talmudic root which would signify an 'aperture' of some kind, as the 'eye of a needle,' ... Lenormant adopts the more usual explanation that the word means a 'knot' ...

... The king, wearing now a short, stiff archaic mantle, walks in a grave and stately manner to the sanctuary of the wolf-god Upwaut, the 'Opener of the Way', where he anoints the sacred standard and, preceded by this, marches to the palace chapel, into which he disappears. A period of time elapses during which the pharaoh is no longer manifest.

When he reappears he is clothed as in the Narmer palette, wearing the kilt with Hathor belt and bull's tail attatched. In his right hand he holds the flail scepter and in his left, instead of the usual crook of the Good Shepherd, an object resembling a small scroll, called the Will, the House Document, or Secret of the Two Partners, which he exhibits in triumph, proclaiming to all in attendance that it was given him by his dead father Osiris, in the presence of the earth-god Geb. 'I have run', he cries, 'holding the Secret of the Two Partners, the Will that my father has given me before Geb. I have passed through the land and touched the four sides of it. I traverse it as I desire.' ...

Egyptian flail

Phoenician lamed

Greek psi

Ψ (ψ)

Wikipedia: In writing, the early letter appears in an angular shape (). There were early graphical variants that omitted the stem, 'chickenfoot-shaped psi', as:

In later research it was postulated that the [Phoenician] alphabet is actually two complete lists, the first dealing with land agriculture and activity, and the second dealing with water, sea and fishing.

The first half beginning with Alef - an ox, and ending with Lamed - a whip. The second list begins with Mem - water, and continues with Nun - fish, Samek - fish bones, Ayin - a water spring, Peh - the mouth of a well, Tsadi - to fish, Kof, Resh and Shin are the hook hole, hook head and hook teeth, known to exist from prehistoric times, and the Tav is the mark used to count the fish caught.

The Crook and Flail were instruments of the Pharaoh:

Egyptian water ripples		Phoenician mēm		Greek mu	Μ (μ)
... Behind me, towering almost 100 feet into the air, was a perfect ziggurat, the Temple of Kukulkan. Its four stairways had 91 steps each. Taken together with the top platform, which counted as a further step, the total was 365. This gave the number of complete days in a solar year. In addition, the geometric design and orientation of the ancient structure had been calibrated with Swiss-watch precision to achieve an objective as dramatic as it was esoteric: on the spring and autumn equinoxes, regular as clockwork, triangular patterns of light and shadow combined to create the illusion of a giant serpent undulating on the northern staircase ...

Egyptian cobra in repose

Phoenician nūn

Greek nu

Ν (ν)

... Nun is thought to have come from a pictogram of a snake (the Hebrew word for snake, nachash begins with a Nun and snake in Aramaic is nun) or eel.

Some have hypothesized a hieroglyph of a fish in water for its origin (in Arabic, nūn means large fish or whale). The Phoenician letter was named nūn 'fish', but the glyph has been suggested to descend from a hypothetical Proto-Canaanite nahš 'snake', based on the name in Ethiopic, ultimately from a hieroglyph representing a snake.

... Nahš in modern Arabic literally means 'bad luck'. The cognate letter in Ge'ez and descended Semitic languages of Ethiopia is nehas, which also means 'brass'.

Egyptian sky pillar

Phoenician waw

Greek upsilon

Υ(υ)

... Upsilon (uppercase Υ, lowercase υ; Greek: ύψιλον, ýpsilon ... is the 20th letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, Υ has a value of 400. It is derived from the Phoenician waw ... Waw (wāw 'hook') is the sixth letter of the Semitic abjads ...

... Upsilon is known as Pythagoras' letter, or the Samian letter, because Pythagoras used it as an emblem of the path of virtue or vice. As the Roman writer Persius wrote in Satire III:

and the letter which spreads out into Pythagorean branches has pointed out to you the steep path which rises on the right.

Lactantius, an early Christian author (ca. 240 - ca. 320), refers to this:

For they say that the course of human life resembles the letter Y, because every one of men, when he has reached the threshold of early youth, and has arrived at the place 'where the way divides itself into two parts', is in doubt, and hesitates, and does not know to which side he should rather turn himself´...

Sumerian SAG

Phoenician resh

Greek rho

Ρ (ρ)

... Resh (Arabic: rāۥ) is the twentieth letter of many Semitic alphabets, including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew ... The word resh is usually assumed to have come from a pictogram of a head, ultimately reflecting Proto-Semitic *raۥ(i)š-. The word's East Semitic cognate, rēš-, was one possible phonetic reading of the Sumerian cuneiform sign for 'head' (SAG).

... Then I become aware of ... a presence - a faint, ghostly glimmering, like moonglow, that has appeared on the solstice stone. I don't know how long it lasts, a second or two only I would guess, but while it is there it seems less like a projection - which I know it to be - than something immanent within the stone itself. And it seems to function as a herald for it fades almost as soon as it has appeared and in its place the full effect snaps on - instantaneously. It wasn't there, and then it's there. As Chris had described, the effect does curiously resemble a poleaxe, or a flag on a pole, and consists of a 'shaft', narrow at the base but widening a little towards the top, running up the left hand side of the solstice stone, surmounted by a right-facing 'head' or 'flag'. An instant later an almond-shaped spot of light, like an eye, appears a few centimeters to the right of the 'flag' and the effect is complete. Weirdly - I do not claim it has any significance - this flag-on-a-pole symbol is the ancient Egyptian hieroglyph neter, meaning 'god', or 'a god' - and not to be understood at all in the Judaeo-Christian usage of that word but rather as a reference to one of the supernatural powers or principles that guide and balance the universe. Manifested here, in this strange Stone Age temple, it glows, as though lit by inner fire ...

Marija Gimbutas: 'To sleep within the Goddess's womb was to die and to come to life anew'. In a system of reincarnation the old one must die in order to be reborn, of course. At midsummer Sun comes to a standstill, and this must therefore be an occasion when the 'flame of life' had to be transported into a new body.

Egyptian djed

Phoenician sāmekh

Greek xi

Ξ (ξ)

... In rongorongo times the last Greek lettered star in Orion (ξ) rose with the Sun in June 21. The letter seems to have originated from the Phoenician letter samekh (tent peg, supporting prop), which in turn may have been derived from the ancient Egyptian djed column ...

Egyptian sticks Phoenician taw Greek chi Χ (χ)

Greek tau Τ (τ)

In Plato's Timaeus, it is explained that the two bands that form the soul of the world cross each other like the letter Χ.

Roman XII = 12 → XIII = 13, with the Nose in between - and later, after the Mouth, the cycle would begin anew (I).

Chi or X is often used to abbreviate the name Christ, as in the holiday Christmas (Xmas). When fused within a single typespace with the Greek letter Rho, it is called the labarum and used to represent the person of Jesus Christ. (Wikipedia)

... tau is the 19th letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 300 ... Taw is believed to be derived from the Egyptian hieroglyph meaning 'mark' ...

Taw, Tav or Taf is the twenty-second and last letter in many Semitic abjads ... In gematria Tav represents the number 400, the largest single number that can be represented without using the Sophit forms ...

'From Aleph to Taf' describes something from beginning to end; the Hebrew equivalent of the English 'From A to Z' ...

Tav is the last letter of the Hebrew word emet, which means truth. The midrash explains that emet is made up of the first, middle, and last letters of the Hebrew alphabet (Aleph, Mem, and Tav...). Sheqer (falsehood), on the other hand, is made up of the 19th, 20th, and 21st (and penultimate) letters.

Thus, truth is all-encompassing, while falsehood is narrow and deceiving. In Jewish mythology it was the word emet that was carved into the head of the Golem which ultimately gave it life. But when the letter 'aleph' was erased from the Golem's forehead, what was left was 'met' - dead. And so the Golem died ... (Wikipedia)