Itt-ott, 1969. november - 1970. szeptember (3. évfolyam, 1-10. szám)

1970-03-01 / 4. szám

Kazakh, Uigur, and Kirghiz;- and also Persian, Armenian and Georgian, to name hut a few. Among the ancient languages, besides Sumerian, Akkadian, -Elamite, all the other old Semitic languages should be studied by them.

There is also a practical difficulty involved with research of this magnitude which is, possibly, so obvious as to have been overlooked. Scientists have not relied upon linguistical analyses alone--but mostly, as in the Mesopotamian projects, upon excavations made in the desert heat and among the pain and disease-inflicting insects of Iraq. Whatever information has been gleaned about Sumer is the result of archaeological work begun in 1877. Woolley alone "sifted sand" at Ur for twelve years. At one point in his Excavations at Ur (London, 1955)> he mentions that he spent three weeks gluing together a statue of a bull that had been smashed into a thousand pieces, only to have it fall to dust when he attempted to lift it. Zealousness has not been responsible for successful research, but rather patience, stamina, dedication, a willingness to work long and hard, and money for long-range, expensive projects.. Perhaps as one of their "intermediate goals" the Hungarians could set out to find and excavate Ara-tta--a city mentioned in four epic tales of the Sumerians--which has .not been found, but is thought to .lie buried somewhere in northwestern Iran, close to the Caspian Sea.

It is impossible not to object to the methods, neither scientific nor honest, of the Hungarians dabbling in Sumerian studies. In' short, not only do they misuse other people's research and materials, by carefully selecting facts to support their foregone conclusions, they also engage themselves in a kind of etymologizing current and; acceptable among scholars two hundred years ago. The relevance and credibility of any scientific conjectures as to a similarity of their origins with the, Sumerians will be diminished if the Hungarians pursue a course of ludicrous, insincere and irresponsible scholarship.

Still, all objections to the methods of the Hungarian " sumerologists" may be easily dismissed in view of the spiritual needs they project. They are trying to. convince themselves that they built the Ark--thereby saving mankind. . . That Adam and Eve were really Ádám és Eva. . . That they are the progenitors of the genius and civilization of mankind. Since the greater the myth created by a people, the greater their probable feelings of inferiority, one might conclude that if the ship is all that leaky, maybe it should simply be abandoned.

It is painful to watch this type of self-aggrandizement--of which the Germans have been so guilty in the past, and which is now rampant among the blacks--becoming more and more widespread among the Hungarians. Being an American, I can predict the reaction to this New Myth: the Hungarians must have nothing, that they should feel the

23