The Phœnician origin of Britons, Scots & Anglo-Saxons : discovered by Phœnician & Sumerian inscriptions in Britain, by preroman Briton coins & a mass of new history : with over one hundred illustrations and maps

BIL NAME FOR FATHER GOD IN BRITAIN 267

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prow of their shipst—these were evidently “ gollywog ” mascots, carried perhaps to humour their native crews, who were probably in part Pictish pygmies. But these are not figured on the representations of Phcenician ships.

‘ Bel,” or properly “ Bil,” is the title used for this “ Sun "’ god in the Newton Stone Pheenician inscription, in both its versions—in the Ogam the short vowel is not expressedand this form B-L (7.e., Bil or Bel) occurs in late Pheenician inscriptions elsewhere,? as the title of their Father God. And it is the title surviving in Britain in connection with the “‘ Bel Fire’ rite at midsummer solstice.

This name B7/ or “‘ Bel”’ is now disclosed to be derived from the Sumerian (7.e., Early Aryan) word for “ Fire, Flame or Blaze,’ namely Bil, for which the written wordsign is a picture of a Fire-producing instrument with tinder sticks. It is defined with the title of ‘‘ God,” as “ God Bir of the Sun, Darkness and Wisdom’”’ ;* and the Sumerian word-sign for the “ Sun ”’ itself is defined in the glosses as meaning “God Bel,’’ 7.e., the old Father God of the Suntemple at Nippur, the oldest Sun-temple in Babylonia, and the Bel who in the oldest Sumerian hymns “settled the places of the Sun and Moon,’’*

As this word “ Bil,’ however, is a purely Sumerian (i.e., Aryan) word, when the Semites of the Chaldees in Babylonia borrowed from the Sumerians the idea of this Father-God, and having no name of their own resembling it with the meaning of “ Fire” or “ Flame,” they appear to have equated that name to their Semitic word “ Bal” or “ Baal” meaning “ Lord, Master or Owner,’ which they also spelt “‘ Bel”’ and “ Bilu”’ ;* but which possesses no suggestion of Fire, Flame or the Sun, like the original Sumerian or Aryan word, Yet this Semitic Bel, thus derived from the solar Aryan Sumerian Father-God Bil, is often invested with Fire, as the paramount god of their Babylonian

1 Herod., 3, 37. H. describes these “‘ pygmies,’’ which he calls Pataifoi, as deformed like Vulcan the smith. They are believed to resemble the misshapen dwarf figurines of ‘‘ Ptah, the Smith,’’ common in Egypt.

EEG Zo,

* Br., 4566, and cp. P.S.L., 58; B.B.W., 2 pp. 99-100. It is also spelt by an analogous sign which is pictured by a Fire-Torch (cp. B.B.W., 2, to1).

4 Br., 4588. = S; 1, 103° 6 M.D., 156-158.