* I want to credit the creator of these two wonderful, clarifying
paintings of Ancient Sumeria.
The wonder of Ancient Sumeria
Let's make civilization wonderful again
... more Sumerian.
On the road to Sumer ... ancient Sumeria!
Wonderful impression of Sumerian Princess Puabi of Ur 2600 BC.
My steps along the journey to ancient Sumeria.
Sumer, Anunnaki, Lazgi, banjos and tars:
.
Unfortunately I have not yet discovered who this artist was.
Ancient Sumerian civilization seems to be the apotheosis of a wonderful civilization
....."the good old days"
We might all be better off when/if ancient Sumerian civilization is rightly regarded as the gold standard. All people today share a common Sumerian ancestry and/or share in the trauma induced by the world order since destruction of Sumeria 2,000BC. Evolving to a Sumerian inspired world will involve a major paradigm shift for humanity. Much is involved ... theology, history, culture, values, politics, sexuality etc.
New: Please visit my developing web site "Lazgi.com"
Click here
"CuneiWiz"
04/06/2022. My new (user adjustable) computer program to assist in Sumerian cuneiform sign "look up" and translation. 2 min demo (no audio):
Click here
Courtesy: St.Louis Post-Dispatch Sunday magazine, Cover September 28, 1930.
by staff artist W.A.Byrne. Newspaper article about Royal Tombs of Ur discoveries.
What science has discovered about the personal adornment of Chaldean ladies.
Note:Below is the current stage/state of my study, research
and writing.This website is like an evolving
live book. It's a weave of music, culture, history and ancient history. If you care to discuss any of the topics below please feel
free to email:
Len@TheresaVaughn.com
For starters and clarity I think it's good to put my bottom line at the very top:
Here it is: I believe studying ancient Sumerian civilization
can help all humanity raise/repair its consciousness/mindscape.... its perspective on MANY foundational things.
We all need recovery from 5,000 years of false history/information and great control. This problem began with the destruction
of ancient Sumeria 2,000BC and continues on to this very day.
False history/news is deep, wide and very ancient! Hopefully, we all learn our real history soon.
Background images relating to all the text below:
I've been studying and connecting many "dots" about our long history on earth.
This was like assembling a large 4D jigsaw puzzle. In doing so, I believe I found one very special important puzzle piece... a magical piece.
It's called "Lazgi"...It's
very spiritual ... a dance/artform/musical performance/celebration ..
a remembrance of the good old days of old Sumeria,
when we became upgraded and enhanced (from our earlier more primitive state)
... a very Sumerian concept.
Mardan (Marsh Arabs), Hulkar Abdullayeva, Sumerian Cuneiform, Inanna.
Hit Ctrl & <+> to enlarge images.
Click here
Inanna and Hulkar Abdullayeva. Note Layered dress of Inanna.
Hit Ctrl & <+> to enlarge images.
Click here
Sumerian Alien, Mardans, Mardan Reed building.
Note Hulkar's Inanna styled layered dress.
Hit Ctrl & <+> to enlarge images.
Click here
Aliens of Sumeria, Mardan.
Hit Ctrl & <+> to enlarge images.
Click here
For starters in this journey it's good to have at least one good lighthouse to help guide us. It turns out to be Lazgi. Lazgi is often celebrated in the city of Khorezm Uzbekistan, Central Asia. In my opinion, Hulkar Abdullayeva and Dilnoza Ortiqova are the most wonderful Lazgi presenters. You can experience them below this long introduction. Lazgi is wonderful and important because it so very well conveys the spirit/feeling of Ancient Sumeria. Sometimes ancient folk music, tales, and concepts can be very moving and potent. I believe this is especially true for Lazgi, a very magical "fairytale" at least 3,000yrs old.
What does Lazgi have to do with banjos?
This is a very long story that began in Sumeria 3,500BC!
I'll try to now give you the high points. You can think of this paper as Cliff's notes for Lazgi or Lazgi for dummies. Well here goes:
Ancient Sumeria:
Ancient Sumeria is the oldest known, very well-documented civilization. They developed cuneiform writing and left a tremendous amount of information for us about them. Those cuneiform tablets were written about 3,500BC but Sumerian civilization was many, many thousands of years older as far as we know. You can easily find a tremendous amount of very good information about Ancient Sumeria on YouTube. You will see that the Sumerians were very good people. You will discover very long lists of what they created or were gifted to via the sky Visitors, Aliens, or Gods. The Sumerians had tremendous knowledge and abilities in astronomy, mathematics, music, and poetry. They invented the wheel, our time system (seconds, minutes and hours, months and years.. our calendar system and schools. They made and enjoyed beer.
There is a very long list of their accomplishments to be seen if you want to look into it.
Unfortunately, Ancient Sumeria was destroyed in about 2,000BC, yet because of their cuneiform writings, archaeologists have been able to discover much about them. Zecharia Sitchin, Erich Von Daniken, Matthew LaCroix, and Viper TV all have many wonderful videos relating to Ancient Sumeria on YouTube.
The Sumerian civilization was good, cultivated, colorful, beautiful, harmonious, good-humored, and peaceful. After Sumeria was destroyed in 2,000BC humanity went on a 5,000-year journey of endless problems ...... wars, revolutions... all kinds of troubles.
Even though Sumeria was destroyed its ideas and concepts did spread quite far and affected many places.
Khorezm, Uzbekistan was on the Silk Road that brought many goods and materials from the east to the west and vice versa. Along with the caravans and merchandise, Sumerian culture and ideas spread out along that Silk road.
For some wonderful reason or miracle, a colorful sparkling trace of Ancient Sumeria became deeply embedded in Khorezm, Uzbekistan.
The Lazgi performance that they do there is essentially a remembrance, a recollection of the good old days of old Sumeria.
Sumerians, their music:
Among the many Sumerian musical accomplishments were the seven music modes: Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian, and Locrian. The Greeks learned these from the Sumerians and renamed them. The Sumerians developed many musical instruments: lyres, lutes, flutes, and banjo-like instruments. It is believed that the instruments of Africa may have been originally been inspired by the Sumerian presence in southeastern Africa very many 1,000s of yrs ago. After African slaves were brought to America they eventually started to build instruments like the Gourd Banja ( banjo ) similar to those they had made in Africa.
The American Banjo:
In about 1830, Joel Walker Sweeney of Appomattox Virginia developed the idea of the bentwood banjo rim.... to get a better sound than gourds offered.. Sweeney became a major performer in America and England. He was loved and very well paid by Queen Victoria in 1843.
After returning from a year in England, Joel deposited $7,000 ( gold ) in the Lynchburg Va. bank. The Queen also shipped a stagecoach with a team of white horses to him.
Enter Theresa Vaughn:
Joel Walker Sweeney passed away just before the civil war. A few years later Theresa Ott Vaughn was born in New York City and was captivated by southern Appalachian music. As a teenager, she joined up with a traveling mini Broadway-like show in 1881 and rapidly became the biggest star in America. By 1892 she was the major star on Broadway. There is much information about her on my website. Because of Theresa Vaughn, I became increasingly interested in the 1890s. It was the Belle Epoque in Paris and in America also.... especially because of Theresa's influence. When she got to Broadway the blackface minstrel show was the big thing.... It was also very big in England at the same time. Even though Theresa loved Appalachian folk music and banjo she never got into the minstrel show concept but instead redirected our culture single-handedly into a more poetic and romantic kind of music. I believe her influence affected Oscar Hammerstein II. He was born right in New York city while Theresa was the biggest star there and across the entire country.
It's as if she opened the door for Oscar Hammerstein II and his more uplifting romantic humorous approach to theater.
Theresa also helped introduce the French cancan to America in a very wonderful and exceptional show called "Little Christopher", a musical comedy about the grandson of Christopher Columbus. The music in that show was completely wonderful. I re-created this lost show here.
Click here for:
"Little Christopher" show. Full script and stage notes recited with wonderful music of the show in background (1.25hr)
1492 "Up to date or very near it". Theresa Vaughn was the star
of this major hit show; it was her 1st Broadway show.
I re-created Act 1 here.
Click here for:
"1492 Act1" show. Good comedy/parody of Royalty (1hr)
Getting back to Ancient Sumeria:
Ancient Sumeria was destroyed about 2000BC. That was perhaps THE monumental "fork in the road" for all humanity.
It was a very bad forced fork for all of us.
After the destruction of Sumeria, the ruling, aggressive, cruel, warrior Kings tightened their grip on humanity.
For the past 5000 yrs. the surviving Sumerians and people everywhere became increasingly under strict control. Thankfully the internet is waking humanity world wide to help a better more Sumerian influenced planet to be re-born.
A big part of people control was/is the three big new developing religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. All our ancestors where forced to join one of the above religions or face prison, torture and/or death.
Knowledge of the golden high Sumerian civilization was (and still is) very well scrubbed from history.
Government/academia seems to agree with this censorship.
At last, in 1869, as researcher Jules Oppert, was translating ancient texts he noticed many references to "The King of Sumer & Akkad". He theorized that there must've been a Sumerian people and their land was called Sumer.
The book of Genesis references Sumer. Abraham in the Bible was a Sumerian, born in the city of Ur (in southwestern Iraq).
The first significant excavation of an actual Sumerian site began in 1877 by French archaeologists. Those excavations continued until 1933.
Many Sumerian tablets were translated, but hundreds of thousands have not yet been translated. The Sumerian stories are wonderful, colorful, sexy, funny, sci-fi fantastic, and very poetic.
If you like science fiction you will love Sumerian writings. The Sumerians may have been the very first to talk about visitors from the sky, UFOs, Aliens, or whatever. You can find endless examples on YouTube. Some of the best items to be found are the stories about their beloved Sumerian Goddess (or Alien) Inanna.
Lazgi:
So what is Lazgi ... and its importance? In my opinion
Lazgi is a performance/celebration/remembrance of the good old days of ancient Sumeria. It's a wonderful stepping stone on the road back to Sumeria in spirit. It shines like a lighthouse guiding the way.
Very wonderful Lazgi performances can be seen below this long introduction. Lazgi is a celebration of the enhancement of humanity.
It's a very Sumerian story... it has been passed down through oral tradition and folk music in Khorezm, Uzbekistan, for at least 3,000 years!
It was said that the Sumerian Gods or "visitors from the sky" were given the job to upgrade humans and plug in the soul, spirit, or consciousness into them. However, a problem happened. The souls tried to escape! they said they were frightened and didn't like being stuck in the body.
Lazgi music and dance were created to uplift the spirit and the soul so much that it would be happy even though contained in a body. The performance is very colorful and beautiful; the dancer flirts with facial expressions as a way to make people feel happier. Also in Lazgi the dancer's hands are raised towards the sky and tremble (Lazgi means to tremble). The trembling is from the energy of the spirit or soul entering the body.... It almost looks like electric shocks are happening. Lazgi dancers use flirting and humor as part of the recipe for making the soul feel good.
The Tar:
One of the most common instruments featured in Lazgi music is the Azeri tar. This instrument looks somewhat like a double-headed banjo with 11 strings and has a long history. Its roots likely go back to Ancient Sumeria.
Click here
My Tar's journey to me and its severe shipping damage. Hit Ctrl & <+> to enlarge images.
Click here
Happy ending ... repair job almost complete. Has a nice tar sound. Hit Ctrl & <+> to enlarge image.
Hopefully will post video(s) when I get used to it.
On Hulkar Abdullayeva's Lazgi video below, the first instrument you hear and hear throughout the video is the Azeri tar.
So this then is the complete banjo story. Lazgi conveys
very nicely the joy of old Sumeria. It's not just black and white wonderful words on paper in scholarly books.... It's not just ancient clay tablets with cuneiform stories.... It's not just the wonderful stone temples and bass reliefs on their walls.
Lazgi gives you another perspective. It conveys the colorful, sparkling, joyful experience that was the magic of old Sumeria!
Some of the major stories in all bibles first appeared in the Sumerian cuneiform writings over thousand years earlier. Adam and Eve, Garden of Eden, the great flood, and Noah.... all seem to have originated in those Sumerian writings. So Lazgi helps us experience the flavor of those golden days.
It's very interesting to read the translated original Sumerian stories. They were written about 1,300 years before all the biblical writings that followed.. Though similar the takeaway message is very inverted. For example, all modern religions consider the temptation of Eve to be caused by a devilish spirit in the form of a serpent. In the Sumerian version, it was a sky visitor named Enki. In the Garden of Eden, he appeared temporarily as a serpent. The serpent in those days was considered a symbol of wisdom and knowledge.
Enki, was a well-loved Diety/Alien by the Sumerians. He did not always appear as a snake. Later he was written about as the grandfather of Goddess/Alien Inanna.
Inanna:
There's a wonderfully humorous story about Inanna. The rambunctious, beautiful teenage Goddess/Alien challenges her grandfather Enki to a beer-drinking contest. She was hoping that if he got drunk he would give away secrets of his power to her. It worked! She then takes all the information and escapes in her "Boat of Heaven" back to her home city of Uruk in southwestern Iraq.
Inanna then shares that knowledge with her subjects in Uruk.
So now after you have read the above and viewed the above Sumerian images you may have a better idea of what Ancient Sumeria was like. Also, you may agree that Lazgi can tune you in somewhat to that world. What is so important about all of this?
In my opinion, the takeaway from all the above is very deep and very important. As you probably know the Ancient Sumerians were polytheists, with a pantheon of approximately 200 deities (Gods and Goddesses)... or Aliens. After Ancient Sumeria was destroyed about 2,000BC, the survivors dispersed far and wide. Hundreds of years later, our "modern" big three monotheistic religions came to be.
Hopefully, we'll soon reconnect better with ancient Sumeria:
it's interesting to note that after monotheism appeared "religious differences" became connected to war and violence.
In ancient Sumeria "religion" was never involved in disputes and wars.
By getting on the road to ancient Sumeria we may
latch onto something very valuable.... connection with our good ancient ancestors... our roots.
I'm not suggesting that people worship/pray to these Sumerian deities/aliens.... I do suggest that Ancient Sumeria gives us ( if nothing else ) a very colorful, poetic, joyful, wonderful fairytale ... a good story. It's a mythology that hopefully, we might re-connect with and benefit from. We All are brothers and sisters .... descendants of Ancient Sumeria. We can see the Sumerian deities/aliens as colorful superheroes as role models to emulate.... They can perhaps serve as role models or as gold standards.
Human freedom has been increasingly curtailed in general since the fall of Sumeria.
I think we would all benefit by just thinking about Ancient Sumeria a bit.
Watching just one good Hulkar Abdullayeva Lazgi performance every day might be the minimum daily requirement to make your soul feel better.
Safe journey!
Return to start:
Click here
