Stones

placed in circles (Maoris) are common. Dr Taylor thinks these circles were once covered in to form temples. Dolmens, and flat stone altars, occur near these circles. Erect stones denote male deities, and skulls and bones are set up on mounds, Giles. The Scottish saint. See Bones, Rood. Gilgal. “Circle” (see Gal). The name of at least three towns in Palestine, not including one near Mt, Gerizim according to Samaritans. These retain their names as Jiljalieh, but no traces of the circles are known (see Josh. iv, 5-8, 20). Gilgamas. Gilgames. Dr T. G. Pinches has shown clearly that this is the proper reading of the name of the Chaldean sun-hero, previously read Izdubar, or Gizdubar (see Proc. Bib. Arch. Socy., May 19038, pp. 198, 199). The usual signs may be read either An Gil-ga-mas, or An 1z-dhu-bar, the prefix An showing that the name is that of a deity: but a tablet discovered in 1890 equates this with the spelling An Gi-il-ga-mes, in signs which cannot be otherwise read. The name is apparently Akkadian, signifying “hero of light” (gil like the Turkish chel meaning “to beam”) so that Gilgamas is a sun hero. The name of Gilgamas is mentioned by lian (see Hist. Anim., xii, 2; Ree. of Past (1891), v), and his legend makes him the child of a daughter of Sakkhoras king of Babylon, who was warned by diviners that his grandson would slay him. He shut up his daughter (like Danae) in a high tower, to which, however, a peasant found acce , Gilgamas was then born, and cast out on a high mountain, but an eagle carried the babe to a garden, and the gardener nourished it till at last the prophecy was fulfilled, and Gilgamas ruled in Babylon. The story recalls not only that so common among Aryans, of the maiden on a tower, but also an Egyptian legend of a foreign horseman who climbed up a tower to win a prince , It also seems connected with the Babylonian story of Etana (see Etana). 167