The Pentagram in proto-cuneiform texts from Jemdet Nasr (original) (raw)

One of the arguments used by anti-masons to support their claim that Freemasonry is satanic is to refer to the masonic use of the pentagram. The short answer to this accusation is that the pentagram has no masonic significance, is not a masonic symbol, and is not mentioned in any published mnasonic ritual. It does, though, have a long history, worthy of study.

The pentagram in proto-cuneiform texts from Jemdet Nasr

		Of the 243 tablets currently identified as dating to the Uruk III/Jemdet Nasr period (_c._3000 BCE) , the UB symbol, or pentagram, occurs 46 times on 33 of them. The first tablets were reported to have been sold in Baghdad before 1915 and were subsequently sold in three lots, five tablets to the Parisian antiquities dealers Dumani Frères prior to 1920, twelve to the Louvres in 1924 and seven to the British Museum the same year. During the spring of 1926, Stephen Langden, and a troop of between 12 and 60 workmen unearthed over 150 and possibly as many as 180 proto-cuneiform tablets from a large building in the northeast section of mound B at Jemdet Nasr, a small mound ca. 30 km to the northeast of Kish, while L. Watelin recovered several others in March of 1928. The record keeping during these early discoveries and subsequent storage has lead to some confusion regarding whether the tablets came from Jemdet Nasr, Kish or, in the case of those sold prior to 1915, from Uqair. [2] MSVO 1, 212 Pl.: 79, IX Museum no.: Ashm. 1926-566 [1]

Catalogue of the proto-cuneiform texts from Jemdet Nasr [3] 1. Text no.: MSVO 1, 212 Pl.: 79, IX Museum no.: Ashm. 1926-566, Publication OECT 7, 22. 107x70x20 mm; nearly complete but damaged tablet with an account of a labor force, representing a nearly exact consolidation of the two texts MSVO 1, 213 and 214; s. A. Vaiman, VDI 1974/2, 141 no. 27, and H. Nissen, P. Dameroe and R. Englund, Frühe Schrift, 113-116 (catalogue no. 13.3). Robert K. Englund and Jean-Pierre Grégoire. The proto-cuneiform texts from Jemdet Nasr. 1: copies, transliterations and glossery. (Materialien zu den frühen Schriftzeugnissen des Vorderen Orients 1). With a contribution by Roger J. Matthews. Berlin, Gebr. Mann Verlag: 1991. ISBN: 3-7861-1646-6. 220 pages, 91 plates of copies, 12 plates of photographs. Photo from Plate IX (79), fig. 212, Ashm. 1926-566. Description notes from p. 28. ^
2. Ibid. pp. 7-11. ^
3. Ibid. pp. 156-157. ^