Alba Regia. Annales Musei Stephani Regis. – Alba Regia. Az István Király Múzeum Évkönyve. 6.-7. 1965-1966 – Szent István Király Múzeum közleményei: C sorozat (1966)

Tanulmányok – Abhandlungen - Makkay János: Some ancient sources to the Shamanism. VI–VII, 1965–66. p. 27–42. t. XV.

by the help of anologies taken from shamanistic beliefs. Historical problems in connection with the origin of the mentioned motives are too complicated to be solved at present. Even conjectures would be hazardous until the discovery of additional documents. We are able to state only that elements occurring in the tale of the „huluppu-tree" (the manufacture, use and destiny of the drum and the drumstick) may be regarded as the marks of foreign influence in Sumerian religion and literature. However, this supposed impact did not work on the literary product in question, it has been exerted at a much earlier date. It may be connected with the appearance, the northern or north-eastern origin of the Sumerians possibly. We do not think that it was surviving in practical religion long enough to see the time when the Sumerian tablet has been drafted; it was rather preserved by popular tales or heroic poems as a motive.

77 * ••. In order to pass an objective judgment on the above statements, we are bound to mention analogies from different areas. One of these is the „Story of the Two Brothers" from Ancient Egypt; here Bata is transformed to a bull and is sacrificed at the Pharaoh' s command. Out of two drops of his blood two large persea-trees grow beside the palace gates. Learning this, Bata's one-time wife begs the Pharaoh: „Let these two persea-trees be felled, that I might have fine furniture from them!"

ls As regards the origin of the text we quote an opinion which holds that the story is alien to the specific Egyptian literary works and its origin is to be sought in the Near East.

79 One finds a parallel worth our attention in the Odyssey too. Book XXIII relates the story of the bed of Odysseus. The hero has carved the ft. For the rest, the changed social and economic conditions would have hindered its survival in any other foirm. 718. A. DOBROVITS: A két testvér története. (The Story of the Two Brothers.) Világirodalmi Antológia I. (Anthology of World Literature I.) 2. ed. (Budapest 1963) pp. 46—47. 79. Ant. Hung. 2 (1948) pp. 24—25. :80. Recent literature on this part of the Od.: G. GERMAIN: Genèse de l'Odyssée (Paris 19S4) or Essai sur les origines de certain thèmes Odysséens et sur la Genèse de l'Odyssée (Paris №54) pp. 211—213; j. HIQUILY: Assoc. Guillaume Budé, Congrès de Strasbourg, Actes du Congrès, p. 238; R. MERKELBACH: Untersuchungen zur Odyssee. Zetemata. Monographien zur klassischen Altertumswissenschaft. Heft 2. (München 1951) pp. 13S—

138; F. OELMANN: BJb 157 (1957). We have to remark that much caution is necessary as regards all the conclusions of G. Gabriel. R. Merkelbach finds the earliest part of the Od. in this scene of recognition. •81. PLINY: Nat. Hist. ХП. ii. 1; Phaedrus:: Ш. 17; Philostratus: fab. 58; Achilles Tatius: П. 14. 1; Nonnos: ХГТ. 137, XIV. 30. etc. bed himself of the wood of an olive-tree which used to stand in a place surrounded by a stonewall.

80 We cannot be wrong in concluding that we are not faced by a simple tree of a garden but the sacred olive-tree of Athene evidently. This is borne out by the close connection between Odysseus and Athene and also by the statements of several sources, calling the olivetree the holy plant of the goddess.

81 She has planted it with her own hand,

82 and it resisted any attempt at its destruction.

83 On the other hand, Heracles was the person connected to the olive-tree by manifold links.

81 For our purpose the most important datum is the story that on one occasion he manufactured a resting place for himself out of the wood of the same olive-tree the branches of which have served for the weaving of the Olympic wreath.

85 Further parallels are represented by the coins of Gortyna and Lykia from the second half of the fifth century and the first half of the fourth century В. C. Their obverse shows a large tree, among the branches of which there sits a goddess with a naked waist. The eagle often appears at the top of the tree. The reverse represent a bull. A. Lesky regards this picture as the late emanation of an ancestral cult existing before the age of the Hellenes, being the age-old form of the Zeus-Europa legend at the same time.

86 There is another Lykian coin, showing a goddess sitting on the tree equally. Men with axes approach from right and left to fell the tree. However, the snakes protect it.

87 This scene is strongly reminding us of the tale that also Gilgamesh could hew Inanna's tree only after killing the snake and driving Lilith, the wicked woman dwelling in the trunk, away. Felling the sacred tree of the goddess is a motive not unknown to Greek religion, for the rest. Demeter drives Ery sichthon and his twenty servants, attacking her huge alder, away with wrath.

88 Halirrhothios, Poseidon's son was treated even worse. In order to revenge his father, 82. Kallimachos: Hymn to Athene, 25—26; Apollód: Bibi. III. xiv. 1 places it into the temple of Pandrosos. 83. According to Herod.: VIII. 51—55 the tree stood in the temple of Erechtheus. 84. Apollód.: Bibl. II. v. 1,1; Paus: V. vii. l, or П. xxviii. 7; Pindaros, Ol. Ill; J. G. FRAZER: Adonis Attis, Osiris, Vol. II. (London 1922) p. 240; id.: Pausanias's Description of Greece. (London 18198) Vol. 1П, p. 484, with details on the sources and Vol. Ill, p. 573; A. S. PEASE: RE XVII (1937) p. 210011. 85. Paus.: V. vii. 7. 86. A LESKY: Wiener Studien 45 (1926—27) op. 153—173; A. J. EVANS: JHS 21 (1901) pp. 99 seqq: on Pre—Hellenic treecult; cf. further A. W. PERSSON: The Religion of Greece in Prehistoric Times. (Berkeley 19412) pass.; M. P. NILSSON: The Minoan—Mycenaean Religion and its Survivals in Greek Religion. 2. ed. (Lund I960) pp. 26»— 288; for archaeological data see E. BETHE; Hermes 72 (11937) pp. 192—193; id., Hermes 71 (1936) p. 357; E. SJÖQVIST: AfR 30 (1933) p. 340, etc. 87. L. MALTEN: Hermes 74 (1939) p. 198. 88. Kallimachos: Hymn to Demeter. 37