Phaistos Disk and Old Elamite - New Appendix 5 - Naqia as Clymene and Abi-Rami as Aerope whence Queen Napirasu is Helen of Troy - LexiLine Journal 510

I have added a new appendix, Appendix 5, to my article on Phaistos Disk and Old Elamite Scripts (see The Phaistos Disc: An Ancient Enigma Solved : Two Corroborative Old Elamite Scripts are Ancient Greek - by Andis Kaulins - LexiLine Journal 507) .

The new Appendix relates to the Ph.D. thesis of Sarah Chamberlin Melville, The role of Naqia / Zakutu in Sargonid politics. Ph.D. thesis, Yale University, May, 1994.

Her article suggests to me equating the two "Sargonid" sisters, Naqia and Abi-Rami - who were of unknown origin - with Clymene and Aerope, the daughters of King Catreus of Crete. In such a case, as I originally suspected through my decipherment of the two Old Elamite Scripts, Queen Napirasu would then likely be Helen of Troy.

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APPENDIX 5 – THE TWO SISTERS : NAQIA & ABI-RAMI
(appendix added December 19, 2008, after the speech in London)

Sarah Chamberlin Melville, The role of Naqia / Zakutu in Sargonid politics. Ph.D. thesis, Yale University, May, 1994. http://www.shc.ed.ac.uk/classics/undergraduate/ancient/documents/Zaquia.pdf

As Sarah Chamberlin Melville writes at the very outset of her dissertation:

"There is more evidence for Naqia/Zakutu than for all other Sargonid royal women combined."

Why is that the case? Apparently, there was something very unusual about her.

Naqia's husband, by current historical analyis of mainstream scholars, was allegedly Sennacherib, her son was Esarhaddon and her grandson was Ashurbanipal. We do not examine here the question of chronology or the identities of kings in terms of duplicate (but different) names in other empires.

What is important for us to note here for purposes of our discussion is that Naqia entered her husband's harem while he was still a crown prince - and that her origin, as that of her sister, are unknown mysteries which have puzzled scholars. Solely on the basis of transliteration, her name is regarded to be West Semitic. We, on the other hand, note that the name Naqia is very close linguistically as a word to Neith and that the version Neith-krety or Neith-kety ("Nitokris") would explain her Akkadian name of Zakutu as deriving from Za-Kutu <*Aiz–Kretu meaning "from Crete".

As Sarah Chamberlin Melville writes (p. 6 of the dissertation, page 23 of the .pdf):

"We do not investigate the question of whether or not the memory of Naqia generated the later legend of Nitokris of Babylon.[6] That subject demands treatment as a facet of the wider problem of the perception of Neo-Assyria in later traditions."

Melville in fact devotes an entire chapter of her dissertation to Naqia's unknown origins (Chapter II) and she notes importantly - for our previous discussion of the two daughters of King Catreus of Crete - that Naqia also had a sister Abi-rami, whose origins are equally unknown. (p. 24 of the dissertation, page 41 of the .pdf)

These two sisters mesh well potentially with the story of the two daughters of King Catreus of Crete who were sent away to be married off into foreign lands. But if those two sisters, Clymene and Aerope, in fact match Naqia and Abi-Rami, then Queen Napirasu of Elam can only be Helen of Troy and her husband Napirisha (Na-PIRIS) is then the Paris of the same legend.