Chapter 3

KATREUS

The electrical god could be captured in a box, chest, or ark, and the Greek word elektron, amber, can be explained as El [the god above], out of the thronos [seat].

We have suggested above that the Etruscan ar, fire, and the Latin ara, altar, are the fire from the sky and the place to which it is attracted and strikes in the form of lightning.

Descriptions from all over the world of a snake-like object in the sky were probably inspired by the sight of the tail of a comet. The head of a comet with protuberances would be seen as the head of a bull, goat, stag or other horned creature.

Piezoelectric effects in rocks as a result of earthquakes led to the study of the earth goddess Ga, Da, or Ge. The Egyptian neter, divine, represented by what may be an axe, has the same consonants as the Greek antron, cave.

Antron probably means a cave formed by a split in the rock. The Lydian word pel, cave, is related to the Greek spelaion. Pelekus is the Greek for a sacrificial axe, and it was in the days of Peleg that the earth was divided [Genesis X: 25].

Furthermore, the German spellen means to split. The name of Katreus, the successor of Minos, may have ka as a significant component. The 'treus' is probably 'tereus', which happens to be the name of a Greek king who was turned into a hoopoe. The hoopoe is a bird with a prominent erectile crest on its head.

Augurs watched mice, snakes, and other creatures, but especially birds, in order to detect behaviour that gave warning of an electrical storm, or of earthquakes, which were numerous and violent in certain periods of ancient history.

The Latin name for a hoopoe is upupa. In Greek it is epops. The Greek epoptes is the term for somebody who beholds the mysteries at a Greek religious centre such as Eleusis.

One of the forms used as a perfect tense of the Greek verb horan, to see, is opopa, meaning 'I have seen'.

Tereo is a Greek verb meaning 'I observe, I watch for something'. Tereus may be a form like the Latin present participle ending in -ens. Regens, regent-, means 'ruling'. I suggest that Tereus is Terens, observing, and that King Katreus was the ka-watcher.

The same phenomenon may be present in the Greek word basileus, king. The Etruscan vacl, or vacil, is a banquet, and kings were the banqueting ones, feasting on the torn remnants of the intruder in the sky, the goat, stag or bull. The Etruscan ber is probably the Latin veru, a spit, dart or javelin. Veru in the plural means a railing round an altar or tomb. Spits, made of iron, suggest the vacl, the sacred feasting on the slain monster. The uprights round an altar or tomb would be an encouragement to the electrical deity to descend and kill, or bring to life. The mouse may appear in the Greek word musterion, which is apparently composed of mus, mouse, and tereo, observe. It seems that a mystery was originally mouse-watching as a means of detecting the presence and imminent activity of the divine power acting on the earth. In Greek rituals such as the Eleusinian mysteries, the ceremonies took place underground.

The prophet Isaiah, LXVI: 17, warns of the Lord's anger against those who eat the mouse.

It may have been thought that by eating mice one would ingest the ability of the mouse to detect the divine presence.

The interpretation of the name Katreus as ka-watcher accords with the visits of monarchs to mountain shrines, with Egyptian theory about the ka [a word which can also mean 'bull', and is therefore linked with the electrical god in the sky looking like a bull with its horns], and with Greek, Roman and Hebrew procedure at a shrine, where the priest went in fear of the deity, risked electrocution, and wore special clothing. The Hebrew yirah Yahweh means fear of Yahweh. The Greek hiereus has a similar sound, and means 'priest'. I suggest that the original meaning of hiereus was 'the fearing one'. There was a frieze of hoopoes at Knosos. Homer refers to the 'divine Pelasgians'. 'Divine' frequently has electrical significance. The Pelasgians should probably be traced back to an area, or areas, outside mainland Greece. Pel is Lydian for 'cave', Greek spelaion. In Greek, initial 'S' sometimes disappears, as does initial 'T'.

'Cave' in Hebrew is me'ara. We may here have the word ar, Etruscan for the electrical divine fire. 'Me' suggests an Egyptian word meaning 'fill'.

The Latin sagus means wise, with knowledge of the future or of divine matters. The Pelasgians were probably the people who were wise about caves and rocks, where a difference of electrical potential could be detected by sensitive creatures such as goats, and by Sibyls [unveilers], as at Delphi. Sibyl is the title Svulare, Unveiler, given to Apollo, the god of prophecy. A goat, Latin caper, is a ka-container; per is Egyptian for 'house'.

Homer writes that in Crete there were Achaeans. It is worthy of note that in the Egyptian Book of the Dead, Ahaiu are fighter gods [Budge's translation p. 689, Arkana 1985].

In Vergil, Aeneid III: 105, Anchises, father of Aeneas, refers to Crete as gentis cunabula nostrae, the cradle of our race, where Teucer had lived, before Ilium or Pergama existed. This passage may of significance if one tries to solve the problem of the origin and movements of the Etruscans.

The name Teucer may mean 'he who makes fire'. The Greek verb teucho is to create, especially in wood or metal; to create an eidolon, image. Zeus creates rain and hail, ombros and chalaza. Teucho is related to tunchano, find, hit, light upon.

When Aeneas and the Trojans reached Italy, there was war between the newcomers and Turnus, prince of the Rutuli. King Latinus, who had promised his daughter to Turnus, changed his mind, and favoured Aeneas. Ascanius, the son of Aeneas, became the first king of Alba Longa, the chief city of the Latin League.

The name of the wife of Aeneas, Lavinia, if reversed, becomes Inibal, presence of Baal. Was she from the eastern Mediterranean area? In the context of the arrival of the Trojans in Hesperia, the 'land in the west', it is worth noting the name of the city of Alba Longa. In Latin, longus does not only mean long; it can mean distant. Was the city of Alba Longa named after a city far away, perhaps to the east? Alba could be a reversal of Ebla, but this is even more speculative than conventional attempts to unravel the history of the period.