Sumerian handbag (British Museum).
These mysterious symbols have been found in ancient carvings all over the ancient world. The ones made by the Sumerians of Ur among many other of their cities (modern day Iraq) came to world attention with the work and the discoveries of the legendary Leonard Woolley. These enduring and deeply mysterious images from many disparate countries and cultures look uncannily like tooled or decorated handbags created in stone on these truly ancient sculptures which have survived. Their shape appears not only in the demolished temples of Ur discovered by Leonard Woolley, the archaeologist who uncovered the ruined city, but also in the ruins of ancient Anatolian (Turkish) temples, and in tribal decorations of the Maori of New Zealand, and these 'handbags' were even discovered among the Olmecs of Central America. Handbags can be seen in the art of many such disparate cultures around the world and throughout those ancient times. It is thought that the first known appearance of these handbags was sometime around the end of the Ice Age. So, what are these mysterious bag like symbols that can be found throughout the ancient world and on so many of their carved monuments?
Elsewhere around the world, these handbag images show up repeatedly, but notably on two ancient stone reliefs. One of these was made by the Assyrians of ancient Iraq around 880 to 859 BC, and the other one created by the Olmecs of ancient Mesoamerica, sometime between 1200 and 400 BC, and they display some striking similarities. In both of these carvings, a human figure carries one of these mysterious handbags in his hand as if it were a basket or a purse. 'When used in Assyrian art, it is said that the purse holds magic dust. When depicted in Olmec art, they postulate that it contains herbs for getting high.' - (Freeborn, 2013). This suggests that these handbags may perhaps have been some kind of innovation or a lost standard of measurement perhaps, discovered independently by both cultures.
Many other instances of these ancient handbag images can be found, some as far away as New Zealand. A Maori myth records a hero who ascended to the home of the gods long ago, and he returned to earth carrying three baskets full of wisdom. So, much like the Göbekli Tepe handbags, the Maori equivalents also symbolise worship and gratitude for divinely inspired knowledge in their own way.
Carved and painted among many ancient Egyptian monuments and hieroglyphs, these handbag images can be found almost everywhere. In ancient Egypt, they were thought to be a symbolic home for their panoply of Gods and Goddesses, with the curving arches of their straps being the domed poles of their portable tents, and that the rectangular bottom being the cloth or the animal pelts which were laid over the poles which supported them. These nomadic, easily portable structures are very similar to the Native American Teepee or even the central Asian Yurt. The myriad occurrence of this symbol throughought the creative arts of the ancient world seems to confirm the use of these handbags as cosmological symbols of knowledge and power perhaps, and which were represented as commonplace household items like wicker baskets so that their ordinary working people would better understand the concept perhaps.
Olmec Monument 19, from La Venta, Tabasco, shows a man holding the handbag in his hand. (Xuan Che)
A Representation of the Cosmos?
These 'handbag' images have become so called because they obviously look identical in many ways to a modern-day handbag or a large purse. These mind-bogglingly ancient objects however, typically feature rounded handles and rectangular bags or containers suspended below them. Many of them display varying degrees of additional carving and pictorial details, some even showing textures or a woven pattern on the sides, suggesting they were perhaps made from grass, wicker, leather or some other material in life. These 'handbag' images sometimes appear as stand-alone objects, but they are mostly depicted as being held in the hand of a person, a warrior or warrior-god or a mythical being.
Assyrian relief carving from Nimrud, 883–859 B.C. ( Metropolitan Museum of Art )
One theory about the proliferation of these ancient images is that they were fairly simple and straightforward representations of the stars and the galaxies above. The semi-circular arch of one of these bag’s straps is thought to represent the hemisphere of the sky, whilst the solid and square base under it may represent the earth. 'In ancient cultures from Africa to India and to China, the figure of a circle was associated symbolically with concepts of spirituality or non-materiality, while that of a square was often associated with concepts of the Earth and of materiality.' - (Scranton, 2016). And so, the bags themselves and the ubiquitous and lasting images on them are thought to symbolise the reunification of the earth and the sky, and of the material and the non-material elements of existence.
Some of the earliest ever discovered 'handbag motifs' were found in the ruins of Göbekli Tepe, in south-eastern Turkey. 'Dating back to approximately 11,000 BC, Göbekli Tepe has proved to be one of the oldest temple complexes ever discovered.' - (Tinfoil Hat, 2014). The exact purpose of that truly ancient mountainside temple complex is unknown fully yet, however, it has been reported that the temple was likely to have served as a site for religious sacrifices and or associated feasting (archaeologists unearthed and logged the finding of many butchered animal bones on the site). The walls and the interior pillars of the main temple are finely decorated with beautifully carved and simplistic animals, gods, and other bizarre looking, deeply mythical creatures, and again, it is thought that these perhaps represented the many different creations and constellations of the universe. Among these ancient carvings were found three carvings of handbags. Experts there believe that the early followers of their unknown religion in these temples worshipped the fundamental elements of life on earth, and wanted perhaps to display them in this ubiquitous way in which they could be understood by all and not just their contemporaries. 'The three Göbekli Tepe handbags taken as an early form of those icons, could be said to symbolically define the site as a temple.' - (Scranton, 2016).
Pillar 43 from Gobekli Tepe in Turkey, showing the three handbag carvings along the top row. Credit; Alistair Coombs.
However, there are also other sets of graphical depictions which almost always go hand in hand with these 'handbag' carvings. These are the 'Pine Cones', and we see the ancient Sumerians and Assyrians utilising them on flowering or budding plant life.
https://i.redd.it/5bjfk9r4k6391.jpg
These pine cones, throughout the long span of recorded human history are thought by modern scholars to have served as a symbolic representation of human enlightenment, the 'third eye' and surprisingly, the pineal gland in the human body. Conifer pines are one of the most ancient plants on the planet, thought to have existed nearly three times longer than all other flowering species. The pine cone is also a symbol representing its evolutionary precursor to the flower, and its stiff interior petals spiral in a perfect spiralling formation within which can flow in either direction, much like that of a rose or a sunflower. Our 'Pine-eal' gland is apparently shaped like and thought to have been named after the Pine cone. The pineal gland is at the geometric centre of our brain however, and fascinatingly, it is intimately linked to our body's ability to perceive light. The pineal gland modulates our wake/sleep patterns and our circadian rhythms, and it remains uniquely isolated from the 'blood-brain barrier system', and it receives a higher blood flow than any other area of the body barring the kidneys. The symbolic pine cone of such inestimable age is thought in some circles to be our mysterious 'third eye', the very 'seat of the soul' and the 'epicentre of enlightenment', and the clearly sacred symbol has been displayed by so many disparate and geographically separated peoples throughout our history.
When scrutinised, it becomes clear that these ancient men are using those pinecones to manually pollinate those plants which are purposely included in the tableaux and as part of a clearly very ancient and established process. One of the primary hand pollination advantages is improved crop yields, especially when your populations of natural pollinators are threatened in some way. Moreover, hand pollination allows the creation of hybrid varieties and the propagation of purer species, species of crops which were hardier perhaps, more productive and less dependant on water, all of these being of huge advantage to those inhabitants of the middle east in those ancient times and any dry country. So, it also becomes clear that they were using both those things in that vital and powerful process which elevated them to astonishing power and afforded them unbelievable wealth, far beyond even today's sky-reaching standards. They used the pine cone and the handbag - together! The bag holds the supremely valuable, especially bred and ingeniously formulated pollen they could produce and harvest, whilst the gardener moves through his garden sprinkling it onto his flowering plants with the pine cone, as so often and repeatedly depicted in those ancient stone carvings. I can't see why this was a mystery for so long, as it seems obvious to me now as so clearly shown in the carved depiction above.
This knowledge possessed immense power, perhaps even more so in such a dry region, and this may explain why these global elites prevailed, established the first civilisations to form properly on this planet and went on to rule and dominate much of the ancient world.
A stone carved (weight?) from Assyria located in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC.
We have traced the migration routes of these world conquering Sumerians and Assyrians from the dry deserts of northern Iraq to ancient Anatolia, and to Britain, where one of the lost ten tribes of Israel followed Moses out of that failing nation and its failing religion, and parts of those wandering tribes eventually found sanctuary in Britain, and here those royal, global elites set down roots here to become the glorious Cymru, much of which is covered in my other articles, and on the many excellent articles, books and dozens of fascinating historical videos and discussions produced by those stalwarts at Britain's Hidden History on Youtube and on Facebook. (their links below). All are welcome, especially to their Sunday evening discussion on Welsh and British history, which is an extraordinarily broad church, where we ascertain that this wonderful and unmatched history we are slowly uncovering; the true history of these island nations, and it is most certainly all of Britain's history, and not just the senior and original Welsh history which has been so insulted, denigrated and accused of being false and febrile nonsense for so long.
Please join us on our lively Sunday evening debates, but please be nice, as it is a very nice and well meaning group you will be interacting with.
For further reading on Britain's ancient history, you may be interested in my historical fiction trilogy of novels depicting both Julian invasions of these islands in 55 & 54 BC; Iron Blood & Sacrifice.
Or you can find over 50 more of my articles and blogs either on my website, or here on my Linkedin page, and please feel free to add any comments or ask any questions about the work and I will endeavour to get back to you in a timely manner.
Britain's Hidden History Facebook; https://www.facebook.com/groups/253944978513072
Britain's Hidden History Youtube; https://www.youtube.com/@BritainsHiddenHistoryRoss
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